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GIFT   OF 
Mr.   Harold  L.  Leupp 


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'A  'N 


McKINLEY'S  RECORD. 


A  REVIEW  OF  HIS  CAREER   IN  PUBLIC  LIFE. 


The  Weakness  of  His  Financial  Position  in  Congress,  and  His  Lack  of 
Capacity  as  Governor  of  Ohio. 


EDITORIALS   AND   LETTERS   FROM  THE    EVENING    POST. 


Price,  10  cents  a  copy ;  postpaid,  12  cents. 

Remittances  may  be  made  by  check,  money  order,  or  in  postage  stamps. 


COPYRIGHT,  1896,  BY 
THE   EVENING   POST   PUBLISHING   COMPANY, 

206-210  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK. 


E' 


0*FT 


McKINLEY'S  FINANCIAL  RECORD. 

Favored  Free  Coinage  of  Silver  in  1877, 

On  the  5th  of  November,  1877,  Mr.  Bland  of  Missouri  moved  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  to  suspend  the  rules  and  pass  a  bill  to  authorize 
the  free  coinage  of  the  standard  silver  dollar.  On  the  call  of  the  roll  Mr. 
McKinley  voted  yea. 

Opposed  Hayes's  Veto  of  the  Bland- Allison  Act  in    1878. 

The  Bland  bill  was  amended  in  the  Senate,  under  the  lead  of  Mr. 
Allison,  so  as  to  provide  for  the  coinage  of  not  less  than  $2,000,000  nor 
more  than  $4,000,000  worth  of  silver  bullion  a  month  into  standard  dol 
lars,  and  in  that  form  passed  the  House.  President  Hayes  vetoed  the  bill 
February  28,  1878.  On  the  question  of  repassing  the  bill  over  the  veto  Mr. 
McKinley  voted  yea. 

Condemned  Cleveland  in   J888  for  Urging  Repeal  of  the  Act  Vetoed  by  Hayes. 

Mr.  McKinley  was  chairman  of  the  committee  on  resolutions  in  the 
Republican  national  convention  of  1888,  and  reported  a  platform  which 
declared  that  "the  Republican  party  is  in  favor  of  the  use  of  both  gold 
and  silver  as  money,  and  condemns  the  policy  of  the  Democratic  adminis 
tration  in  its  efforts  to  demonetize  silver" — these  efforts  consisting  of  recom 
mendations  by  President  Cleveland  that  Congress  should  repeal  the  Bland- 
Allison  act,  precisely  like  the  recommendations  made  by  Mr.  Cleveland's 
Republican  predecessor,  President  Arthur, 

Advocated   Larger  Silver  Purchases  in    J890. 

Mr.  McKinley,  as  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee  and 
leader  of  the  House  in  the  Fifty-first  Congress,  earnestly  advocated  the 
passage  of  the  silver-purchase  act  in  1890  as  better  than  the  Bland  Allison 
act  and  the  next  best  thing  to  free  coinage,  saying  of  it :  "  We  cannot  have 
free  coinage  now,  except  in  the  manner  provided  in  the  bill.  To  defeat 
this  bill  means  to  defeat  all  silver  legislation  and  to  leave  us  with  two 
millions  a  month  only,  when  by  passing  this  bill  we  would  have  four  and 
a  half  millions  a  month  of  Treasury  notes  as  good  as  gold." 

HIS  PLATFORM  NOW. 

The  Financial  Resolution  Adopted  by  the  Ohio  Republican   Convention. 

We  contend  for  honest  money,  for  a  currency  of  gold,  silver  and 
paper  with  which  to  measure  our  exchanges  that  shall  be  as  sound  as  the 
government  and  as  untarnished  as  its  honor  ;  and  to  that  end  we  favor  bi 
metallism  and  demand  the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  standard  money, 
either  in  accordance  with  a  ratio  to  be  fixed  by  an  international  agreement 
(if  that  can  be  obtained),  or  under  such  restrictions  and  such  provisions  to  be 
determined  by  legislation  as  will  secure  the  maintenance  of  the  parities  of 
value  of  the  two  metals,  so  that  the  purchasing  and  debt-paying  power  of 
the  dollar,  whether  of  silver,  gold,  or  paper,  shall  be  at  all  times  equal. 

M160936 


EDITORIALS  FROM  THE  E  I/EN  ING  POST. 


OHIO'S   CANDIDA  TE  IN  1876  AND 

IN  iSg6. 

JOE  MANLEY  recently  made  an  in 
teresting  and  instructive  comparison 
between  the  situation  a  few  weeks 
before  the  Republican  convention  of 
1876  and  the  outlook  to-day,  to  show 
that  the  candidate  who  leads  two 
months  before  the  delegates  meet,  as 
McKinley  does  now,  may  fail  to  secure 
the  nomination,  as  Blaine  failed  twenty 
years  ago.  There  is,  however,  a  con 
trast  between  the  situation  in  1876  and 
that  in  1896,  which  is  much  more 
important  than  Manley's  suggestion. 

Twenty  years  ago,  as  now,  Ohio  en 
tered  a  ''favorite  son"  in  the  contest 
for  the  Republican  nomination.  Twen 
ty  years  ago  the  Ohio  candidate  was 
successful  in  the  convention,  and  the 
Electoral  Commission  awarded  him 
the  presidency.  The  national  conven 
tion  of  1896  is  still  a  number  of  weeks 
away,  but  the  Ohio  candidate  is  far 
ahead  of  all  his  rivals,  and  his  success 
is  confidently  claimed. 

In  one  respect,  however,  and  that 
the  most  important  of  all,  William 
McKinley  in  1896  is  as  far  removed 
from  Rutherford  B.  Hayes  in  1876  as 
one  pole  from  the  other.  The  Ohio 
candidate  twenty  years  ago  was  so 
sound  on  the  financial  issue  that  no 
body  in  the  country  could  question  his 
position.  The  Ohio  candidate  now  is 
so  vague  and  enigmatical  in  his  out 
givings  that  nobody  can  tell  what  he 
means. 

Mr.  Hayes  came  into  national  promi 
nence  through  his  election  as  Governor 
of  Ohio  in  1875,  after  the  most  inter 
esting,  exciting,  and  important  state 
canvass  known  in  the  country  for 


many  years.  The  nation  was  then 
suffering  at  once  from  the  business 
depression  that  followed  the  panic  of 
1873  and  from  the  demoralizing  effects 
of  a  depreciated  currency.  The  Demo 
cratic  managers  in  Ohio,  and  indeed 
throughout  the  country  generally, 
except  in  the  extreme  East,  thought 
that  inflation  of  the  currency  would 
prove  the  most  popular  policy  on  which 
to  run  a  campaign.  They  therefore  re- 
nominated  the  veteran  "Rise-up  Wil 
liam"  Allen  for  Governor  on  a  platform 
which  declared  that  the  contraction  of 
the  currency  already  made  by  the  Re 
publican  party,  and  the  further  con 
traction  proposed  by  it,  with  a  view  to 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments, 
had  brought  disaster  to  the  business  of 
the  country  and  threatened  general 
bankruptcy;  and  made  the  "demand 
that  this  policy  be  abandoned  and  that 
the  volume  of  currency  be  made  and 
kept  equal  to  the  wants  of  trade,  leav 
ing  the  restoration  of  legal-tenders  to 
par,  gold,  to  be  brought  about  by 
promoting  the  industries  of  the  people, 
and  not  by  destroying  them." 

The  Republican  convention  adopted 
a  guarded  declaration  that  "  a  policy 
of  finance  should  be  steadily  pursued 
which,  without  unnecessary  shock  to 
business  or  trade,  will  ultimately  equal 
ize  the  purchasing  capacity  of  the  coin 
and  paper  dollar."  This  represented  the 
cowardice  of  many  Republican  politi 
cians,  and  after  the  nomination  of  Mr. 
Hayes  he  was  appealed  to  by  many  of 
his  party  friends  not  to  oppose  an  in 
crease  of  the  paper  currency.  But  he 
refused  to  make  any  compromise,  and 
sounded  the  real  keynote  of  the  canvass 
in  his  first  deliverance,  when  he  came 


out  openly  and  boldly  for  honest  money 
and  against  inflation.  The  campaign 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole 
country  for  months,  and  the  success  of 
Mr.  Hayes  in  what  was  then  a  doubtful 
state  brought  him  immediately  within 
the  range  of  possible  choice  for  the  na 
tional  convention  the  next  summer. 

Mr.  Hayes  continued  as  outspoken 
and  emphatic  on  the  financial  issue 
after  his  election  to  the  governorship 
as  before.  In  March,  1876,  he  wrote 
Gen.  Garfield  that  "  the  previous  ques 
tion  will  again  be  irredeemable  paper 
as  a  permanent  policy,  or  a  policy 
which  seeks  a  return  to  coin,"  and 
added  that  "  my  opinion  is  decidedly 
against  yielding  a  hair-breadth."  The 
Republican  national  convention  met 
the  issue  squarely.  Its  platform  re 
called  the  fact  that  in  the  first  act  of 
Congress  signed  by  President  Grant 
the  national  government  assumed  to 
remove  any  doubts  of  its  purpose  to 
discharge  all  just  obligations  to  the 
public  creditors  by  solemnly  pledging 
its  faith  to  make  provision  at  the  earli 
est  practicable  period  for  the  redemp 
tion  of  the  United  States  notes  in  coin, 
and  declared  that  "  commercial  pros 
perity,  public  morals,  and  national 
credit  demand  that  this  promise  be  ful 
filled  by  a  continuous  and  steady  pro 
gress  to  specie  payment."  Gov.  Hayes 
warmly  endorsed  this  plank  in  his  let 
ter  of  acceptance,  speaking  as  follows  : 

"  It  is  my  conviction  that  the  feeling  of 
uncertainty  inseparable  from  an  irre 
deemable  paper  currency,  with  its  fluctua 
tions  of  value,  is  one  of  the  great  obsta 
cles  to  a  revival  of  confidence  and  busi 
ness,  and  to  a  return  of  prosperity.  That 
uncertainty  can  be  ended  in  but  one  way 

the  ^resumption  of  specie  payments. 
But  the  longer  the  instability  of  our 
money  system  is  permitted  to  continue, 
the  greater  will  be  the  injury  inflicted 
upon  our  economical  interests  and  all 
classes  of  society.  If  elected,  I  shall 
approve  every  appropriate  measure  to 
accomplish  the  desired  end  ;  and  shall 
oppose  anystep  backward." 


President  Hayes's  financial  views 
were  put  to  the  test  within  a  few 
months  after  his  inauguration.  He 
convened  Congress  in  extra  session  on 
the  I5th  of  October,  1877.  On  the  5th 
of  November  Mr.  Bland  of  Missouri 
carried  through  the  House,  by  a  vote 
of  164  to  34,  a  motion  to  suspend  the 
rules  and  pass  "an  act  to  authorize  the 
free  coinage  of  the  standard  silver  dol 
lar,  and  to  restore  its  legal-tender  char 
acter."  During  the  following  winter 
the  Senate  amended  the  bill  so  as  to 
provide  for  the  coinage  of  silver  dollars 
to  the  amount  of  not  less  than  $2,000,- 
ooo  nor  more  than  $4,000,000  a  month. 
On  the  28th  of  February,  1878,  Mr. 
Hayes  vetoed  this  bill  in  a  most  effec 
tive  message,  on  the  ground  that,  "  if 
the  country  is  to  be  benefited  by  a 
silver  coinage,  it  can  be  done  only  by 
the  issue  of  silver  dollars  of  full  value, 
which  will  defraud  no  man  "  ;  and  he 
declared  that  "a  currency  worth  less 
than  it  purports  to  be  worth  will  in  the 
end  defraud  not  only  creditors,  but  all 
who  are  engaged  in  legitimate  busi 
ness,  and  none  more  surely  than  those 
who  are  dependent  on  their  daily  labor 
for  their  daily  bread." 

Such  was  the  financial  record  of  the 
Ohio  candidate  of  1876 — a  record  of 
which  any  man  might  be  proud.  By  a 
'curious  coincidence  the  Ohio  candidate 
of  1896  entered  Congress  at  the  same 
time  that  Mr.  Hayes  became  President. 
The  first  test  of  Mr.  McKinley's  finan 
cial  soundness  came  on  the  5th  of  No 
vember,  1877,  and  he  responded  by 
voting  with  Mr.  Bland  for  the  free 
coinage  of  silver.  The  second  test 
came  on  the  28th  of  February,  1878^ 
when  the  question  was  whether  the 
Bland-Allison  bill  should  be  passed 
over  the  veto  of  the  Republican  Presi 
dent,  and  again  Mr.  McKinley  followed 
the  lead  of  Bland,  helping  to  make  up 
the  more  than  two-thirds  majority  that 
overrode  the  representative  of  his  own 
state  and  of  his  own  party  in  the  White 
House.  The  McKinley  of  1896  is  con- 


sistent  with  the  McKinley  of  1877  and 
1878,  standing  as  he  now  does  on  a 
platform  that  favors  an  undefined  "  bi 
metallism  "  and  the  coinage  of  silver 
under  restrictions  and  provisions  "  to 
be  determined  by  legislation,"  which 
holds  out  the  hope  that  the  Ohio  can 
didate  of  1896  would  not  veto  any  cur 
rency  act  that  should  get  through 
Congress. 

Can  the  Republican  party  afford  to 
go  into  the  campaign  of  this  year  under 
a  candidate  who  began  public  life  as 
the  advocate  of  free  coinage  and  whose 
position  on  the  silver  question,  after 
twenty  years  of  service,  is  so  vague 
that  nobody  knows  how  he  stands  to 
day?  

PRESIDENTS  AND   THE 

FINANCES. 

IT  is  now  thirty  years  since,  directly 
after xhe  close  of  the  civil  war,  the  first 
attempt  was  made  to  commit  the  coun 
try  to  a  depreciated  currency  by  paying 
government  bonds  in  greenbacks  in 
stead  of  gold.  The  Democrats  took 
up  the  idea  with  enthusiasm  in  1868, 
and  put  a  plank  in  their  platform  de 
manding  '  one  currency  for  the  govern 
ment  and  the  people,  the  laborer  and 
the  office-holder,  the  pensioner  and  the 
soldier,  the  producer  and  the  bond 
holder,"  and  another  declaring  that, 
"where  the  obligations  of  the  govern 
ment  do  not  expressly  state  upon  their 
face,  or  the  law  under  which  they  were 
issued  does  not  provide  that  they  shall 
be  paid  in  coin,  they  ought,  in  right  and 
justice,  to  be  paid  in  the  lawful  money 
of  the  United  States."  The  Republi 
cans  met  the  issue  squarely,  and 
adopted  a  resolution  that  "we  denounce 
all  forms  of  repudiation  as  a  national 
crime  ;  and  the  national  honor  requires 
the  payment  of  the  public  indebtedness 
in  the  uttermost  good  faith  to  all  credi 
tors  at  home  and  abroad,  not  only  ac 
cording  to  the  letter  but  the  spirit  of 
the  laws  under  which  it  was  contract 
ed."  Gen.  Grant's  election  by  an  over 


whelming  majority  upon  this  platform 
settled  the  question,  once  for  all. 

The  next  attempt  of  the  soft-money 
men  was  to  inflate  the  currency  by  the 
act  of  1874.  This  was  blocked  by  the 
veto  message  which  President  Grant 
sent  the  Senate  on  the  22d  of  April  in 
that  year,  and  in  which  he  said  : 

"  The  theory,  in  my  belief,  is  a  depart 
ure  from  true  principles  of  finance,  national 
interest,  national  obligations  to  creditors, 
Congressional  promises,  party  pledges  on 
the  part  of  both  political  parties,  and  of 
personal  views  and  promises  made  by  me 
in  every  annual  message  sent  to  Congress 
and  in  each  inaugural  address." 

The  next  movement  of  the  soft-mon 
ey  men  in  Congress  was  to  secure  the 
free  coinage  of  silver  at  the  first  session 
after  Gen.  Grant  surrendered  the  presi 
dency  to  Mr.  Hayes.  Both  branches 
were  then  more  thoroughly  given  over 
to  wild  ideas  on  the  finances  than  ever 
before  or  since.  Mr.  Bland's  motion  on 
the  fifth  of  November,  1877,  to  pass  a 
free-coinage  act  was  favored  by  164 
members  of  the  House,  and  opposed  by 
only  34,  all  but  ten  of  whom  came  from 
the  Northeastern  section,  comprising 
New  England,  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
and  Pennsylvania.  The  Senate,  under 
the  lead  of  Mr.  Allison,  transformed 
this  into  a  bill  providing  for  the  pur 
chase  of  silver  bullion  and  its  coinage 
into  silver  dollars  of  not  less  than  $2,- 
000,000  worth  nor  more  than  $ 4,000,000 
worth  per  month.  Again,  as  four  years 
before,  the  President  stood  up  for  the 
national  honor,  and  Mr.  Hayes  sent  in 
a  veto,  which  unhappily  was  not  sus 
tained  by  Congress,  as  Gen.  Grant's  had 
been,  but  which  redounds  more  and 
more  to  his  honor  as  the  years  pass  and 
justify  his  warning : 

"  It  is  my  firm  conviction  that,  if  the 
country  is  to  be  benefited  by  a  silver  coin 
age,  it  can  be  done  only  by  the  issue  of 
silver  dollars  of  full  value,  which  will  de 
fraud  no  man.  A  currency  worth  less 
than  it  purports  to  be  worth  will  in  the 
end  defraud  not  only  creditors,  but  all 


who  are  engaged  in  legitimate  business, 
and  none  more  surely  than  those  who  are 
dependent  on  their  daily  labor  for  their 
daily  bread." 

Mr.  Hayes  was  succeeded  in  the 
presidency  by  Gen.  Garfield.  He  had 
stoutly  opposed  the  soft-money  tenden 
cies  in  Ohio,  and  as  a  member  of  the 
House  had  voted  against  free  coinage 
and  in  favor  of  sustaining  Mr.  Hayes's 
veto  of  the  Bland-Allison  act.  In  his 
letter  of  acceptance  he  gave  further 
assurance  that  he  could  be  depended 
upon  to  stand  for  sound  money  by  de 
claring  against  "any  violent  changes 
or  doubtful  financial  experiments." 

The  assassination  of  Garfield  made 
Arthur  President  for  nearly  three  years 
and  a  half.  In  his  letter  accepting  the 
nomination  for  Vice-President  he  had 
come  out  boldly  for  the  gold  standard 
as  follows : 

"Our  paper  currency  is  now  as  good 
as  gold,  and  silver  is  performing  its  legi 
timate  function  for  the  purpose  of  change. 
The  principles  which  should  govern  the 
relations  of  these  elements  of  the  cur 
rency  are  simple  and  clear.  There  must 
be  no  deteriorated  coin,  no  depreciated 
paper,  and  every  dollar,  whether  of  metal 
or  paper,  should  stand  the  test  of  the 
world's  fixed  standard." 

In  conformity  with  these  ideas,  Mr. 
Arthur  threw  the  influence  of  his  ad  - 
ministration  in  favor  of  repealing  the 
Bland-Allison  act.  "  I  concur  with  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,"  he  said  in 
his  last  annual  message  to  Congress,  "in 
recommending  the  immediate  suspen 
sion  of  the  coinage  of  silver  dollars  and 
of  the  issuance  of  silver  certificates." 

Mr.  Cleveland  was  fully  committed 
to  the  same  position  regarding  the  sa- 
credness  of  the  government's  financial 
obligations  and  the  soundness  of  the 
currency  that  had  been  maintained  by 
Grant,  Hayes,  Garfield,  and  Arthur.  In 
his  first  annual  message  to  Congress  he 
recommended  the  suspension  of  the 
compulsory  coinage  of  silver  dollars, 
and  throughout  his  first  term  he  stood 


as  a  rock  against  all  schemes  for  the 
depreciation  of  the  currency. 

Thus  for  twenty  years  the  executive 
department  of  the  government  had 
been  the  firm  reliance  of  the  people 
against  all  the  attempts  of  the  soft- 
money  men  to  have  their  way.  With 
the  election  of  1888  came  a  change. 
Mr.  Harrison,  the  successful  candidate 
in  that  year,  came  from  a  state  which 
had  in  the  past  been  given  over  to  in 
flation  and  free  coinage ;  he  had  en 
dorsed  the  Bland-Allison  act ;  he  was 
nominated  upon  a  platform  which,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  party, 
aroused  doubt  as  to  its  attitude ;  and 
he  evaded  the  issue  in  his  letter  of  ac 
ceptance.  The  result  was  that,  when 
the  free-coinage  men  attempted  in  1890 
to  put  through  a  bill  incorporating  their 
ideas,  the  gravest  apprehensions  were 
felt  that  he  would  give  such  a  measure 
his  approval,  and  the  silver-purchase  act 
was  devised  as  the  only  defence  against 
such  rashness.  Senator  Sherman,  the 
nominal  author  of  the  act,  has  left  this 
statement  of  the  situation  at  that  time, 
on  record  in  his  '  Recollections  ' : 

"  A  large  majority  of  the  Senate  fa 
vored  free  silver,  and  it  was  feared  that 
the  small  majority  against  it  in  the  other 
house  might  yield  and  agree  to  it.  The 
silence  of  the  President  on  the  matter 
gave  rise  to  an  apprehension  that,  if  a 
free-coinage  bill  should  pass  both  houses, 
he  would  not  feel  at  liberty  to  veto  it. 
Some  action  had  to  be  taken  to  prevent  a 
return  to  free  silver  coinage,  and  the 
measure  evolved  was  the  best  obtainable. 
I  voted  for  it,  but  the  day  it  became  a 
law  I  was  ready  to  repeal  it,  if  repeal 
could  be  had  without  substituting  in  its 
place  absolute  free  coinage.  " 

The  election  of  1892  again  placed 
the  executive  department  in  the  hands 
of  a  man  who  could  be  implicitly  de 
pended  upon  to  protect  the  country 
against  all  wild  financial  schemes. 
During  the  first  year  of  his  administra 
tion  Mr.  Cleveland  carried  through  the 
repeal  of  the  silver-purchase  act,  and 


vetoed  a  bill  to  coin  the  seigniorage  ; 
and  thus  stopped  all  coinage  of  silver, 
for  the  first  time  since  1878. 

This  review  shows  that,  with  a  single 
exception,  all  of  the  Presidents  elected 
since  the  civil  war  have  been  sound- 
money  men  of  the  strictest  sort;  and 
that  the  result  of  breaking  this  rule  in 
1888  was  the  passage  in  1890  of  an  act 
so  bad  that  within  three  years  Congress 
had  to  be  convened  in  special  session  to 
secure  its  repeal.  In  other  words,  the 
country  has  tried  both  policies — choos 
ing  Presidents  whose  financial  position 
was  known  and  whose  financial  position 
was  doubtful.  Can  the  nation  afford 
in  1896  to  elect  a  President  who  en 
tered  public  life  twenty  years  ago  to 
vote  at  the  first  opportunity  for  free 
coinage  and  to  override  President 
Hayes's  veto  of  the  Bland-Allison  act ; 
who,  as  leader  of  the  House  six  years 
ago,  strenuously  urged  the  passage  of 
the  silver-purchase  act  as  the  next  best 
thing  to  free  coinage;  and  who  this 
year  takes  refuge  in  declaring  his  adhe 
rence  to  a -"bimetallism"  which  he 
does  not  define  and  which  conceals 
nobody  knows  what  wild  scheme? 


"IN  CLOSE  TOUCH  WITH  THE 
PEOPLE:' 

IN  his  first  term  as  a  member  of  Con 
gress  McKinley  voted  for  the  free  coin 
age  of  silver  at  the  ratio  of  16  to  i  in 
1877,  and  to  override  President  Hayes's 
veto  of  the  Bland-Allison  act  in  1878. 
As  leader  of  the  House  a  dozen  years 
later  he  earnestly 'advocated  the  pas 
sage  of  the  silver-purchase  act  in  1890, 
on  the  ground  that  "we  cannot  have 
free  coinage  now,  except  in  the  manner 
provided  in  the  bill." 

The  advocates  of  McKinley's  nomi 
nation  for  the  presidency  have  only 
one  way  of  meeting  the  disclosure  of 
these  ugly  facts.  They  excuse  the 
course  of  their  favorite  in  each  instance 
by  the  plea  that  he  was  no  worse  than 
his  party  or  than  public  sentiment.  As 
the  Chicago  Inter  Ocean  puts  it: 


"McKinley's  record  in  Congress  on  the 
silver  question  really  shows  that  he  was 
in  happy  accord  with  a  great  majority  of 
the  Republican  party  on  that  as  well  as 
on  other  great  questions.  He  was  not 
only  with  the  vast  majority  of  the  Re 
publican  party,  but  he  showed  himself  to 
be  moving  in  close  contact  with  the  gen 
eral  public  sentiment  of  the  country — 
showed  himself  to  be  in  close  touch  with 
the  people." 

In  this  argument  the  supporters  of 
McKinley  have  touched  the  lowest 
level  that  can  be  reached  in  urging  the 
claims  of  an  aspirant  for  the  presidency. 
They  maintain,  and  seem  glad  to  main 
tain,  that  their  favorite  is  a  man  with 
out  a  spark  of  that  statesmanlike  fore 
sight  which  enables  its  possessor  to 
discern  the  dangers  of  a  popular  craze 
that  for  the  monient  sweeps  everything 
before  it.  They  boast  that  the  first  aim 
of  their  candidate  while  he  was  a 
member  of  Congress  was  to  learn  what 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the  public 
at  the  moment  of  voting  was,  and  then 
to  array  himself  on  that  side.  Their 
argument  logically  leads  to  the  conclu 
sion  that,  if  he  were  elected  President, 
he  would  not  interpose  the  executive 
veto  against  the  enactment  of  the  most 
dangerous  bill  passed  by  Congress, 
because,  if  he  took  such  an  attitude,  he 
would  no  longer  be  "in  close  touch 
with  the  people." 

The  framers  of  the  constitution 
would  have  been  amazed  to  hear  such 
a  plea,  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  should  be  nothing  more  than 
the  mere  recorder  and  endorser  of 
fleeting  public  sentiment.  One  chief 
reason  for  vesting  him  with  the  veto 
power  was  that  he  might  stand  as  a 
bulwark  against  this  danger.  Hamilton 
says  in  the  'Federalist'  of  this  preroga 
tive: 

"The  power  in  question  not  only  serves 
as  a  shield  to  the  executive  [from  en 
croachments  upon  his  power  by  the  leg 
islative  department],  but  it  furnishes  an 
additional  security  against  the  enaction 
of  improper  laws.  It  establishes  a  salu- 


8 


tary  check  upon  the  legislative  body, 
calculated  to  guard  the  community 
against  the  effects  of  faction,  precipitancy, 
or  of  any  impulse  unfriendly  to  the 
public  good,  which  may  happen  to  influ 
ence  a  majority  of  that  body.  The  pro- 
priety  of  the  thing  does  not  turn  upon  the 
supposition  of  superior  wisdom  or  virtue 
in  the  executive,  but  upon  the  supposition 
that  the  Legislature  will  not  be  infallible  ; 
that  impressions  of  the  moment  may 
sometimes  hurry  it  into  measures  which 
itself,  on  maturer  reflection,  would  con 
demn.  The  primary  inducement  to  con 
ferring  the  power  in  question  upon  the 
executive  is  to  enable  him  to  defend*  him 
self;  the  secondary  one  is  to  increase  the 
chances  in  favor  of  the  community 
against  the  passing  of  bad  laws,  through 
haste,  inadvertence,  or  design.  The 
oftener  the  measure  is  brought  under 
examination,  the  greater  the  diversity  in 
the  situations  of  those  who  are  to  exam 
ine  it,  the  less  must  be  the  danger  of 
those  errors  which  flow  from  want  of  due 
deliberation,  or  of  those  missteps  which 
proceed  from  the  contagion  of  some  com 
mon  passion  or  interest." 

The  theory  of  the  veto  power  is  that 
the  President  may  save  the  nation  from 
disaster  in  a  crisis  by  refusing  to  keep 
"  in  close  touch  with  the  people,"  by 
opposing  what  seems  to  be  the  prevail 
ing  public  sentiment.  As  a  rule,  our 
Presidents  have  lived  up  to  the  theory 
of  the  constitution  in  this  respect,  and 
in  every  such  case  history  has  justified 
their  action.  When  they  have  fallen 
to  the  lower  level  of  not  opposing  any 
popular  craze,  the  nation  has  always 
suffered. 

When  Congress  passed  the  inflation 
act  in  1874,  public  sentiment  appeared 
to  favor  it,  and  a  majority  of  the  Re 
publican  Senators  earnestly  supported 
it,  among  them  such  powerful  leaders 
as  Cameron  of  Pennsylvania,  Morton 
of  Indiana,  and  Logan  of  Illinois.  A 
President  whose  prime  object  was  to 
keep  "  in  close  touch  with  the  people  " 
would  have  signed  the  bill  without  the 
slightest  hesitation.  What  saved  the 


nation  from  a  frightful  disaster  was  the 
fact  that  General  Grant  recognized 
"true  principles  of  finance,  national 
interest,  national  obligation  to  credi 
tors  "  as  superior  to  what  might  prove, 
and  did  prove,  an  "  impulse  unfriendly 
to  the  public  good,"  such  as  the  framers 
of  the  constitution  had  foreseen. 

When  another  of  these  dangerous 
impulses  was  felt  in  Congress  sixteen 
year;  later,  the  incumbent  of  the  White 
House  was  unfortunately  a  man  who 
lacked  General  Grant's  courage.  In 
1 890  the  passage  of  a  free-coinage  act 
was  threatened,  and  Senator  Sherman 
and  other  Republicans  who  opposed 
that  policy  were  made  apprehensive  by 
Mr.  Harrison's  silence  that  he  would 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  veto  such  a  bill  if 
it  should  pass.  "  Some  action,"  says 
Mr.  Sherman,  "  had  to  be  taken  to  pre 
vent  a  return  to  free  silver  coinage,  and 
the  measure  evolved  was  the  best  ob 
tainable."  The  silver-purchase  act,  the 
operation  of  which  within  three  years 
compelled  the  calling  of  a  special  ses 
sion  of  Congress  to  secure  its  repeal, 
was  thus  due  to  the  weakness  of  a 
President  who  could  not  be  depended 
upon  to  resist  the  passion  of  the  hour. 

McKinley's  record  on  the  currency 
question  is  bad  enough.  But  the  de 
fence  of  that  record  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  in  line  with  his  party,  and  the 
advocacy  of  his  election  to  the  presi 
dency  because  he  will  always  try  to  be 
in  close  contact  with  public  sentiment, 
uncover  fresh  perils  to  the  country  from 
his  successful  candidacy.  An  execu 
tive  whose  highest  aim  is  always  to  be 
"  in  close  touch  with  the  people  "  is  to 
be  dreaded,  as  a  constant  menace  to 
the  safety  of  the  nation. 

PRESIDENT,  CONGRESS,  AND 

CURRENCY. 

IT  is  of  the  first  importance  to  the 
nation  that  the  next  administration 
shall  be  one  which  can  be  depended 
upon  to  play  no  pranks  with  the  cur- 


9 


rency.  Whether  that  administration 
shall  be  Republican  or  Democratic  is  a 
matter  of  far  less  consequence  than 
whether  it  shall  stand  for  sound  money. 

As  the  Republican  convention  will  be 
held  a  month  before  the  Democratic, 
pu-blic  attention  is  now  chiefly  concen 
trated  upon  the  attitude  to  be  taken  by 
the  former  convention  regarding  the 
financial  issue.  That  attitude  will  be 
largely  determined  by  the  record  of  the 
candidate  for  President  who  shall  be 
nominated.  Indeed,  the  confidence  of 
the  public  in  the  stability  of  a  Republi 
can  administration  may  practically 
depend  upon  whether  a  man  shall  be 
chosen  who  has  shown  that  he  can 
always  be  depended  upon  to  stand  out 
against  financial  follies. 

It  is  sometimes  urged  that  the  gen 
eral  attitude  of  the  respective  parties  is 
the  most  important  element  in  the 
case,  and  that  presidential  candidate 
and  platform  are  of  secondary  conse 
quence.  "  I  do  not  attach  very  much 
weight  to  platforms  or  candidates," 
remarked  a  prominent  Republican  Con 
gressman  the  other  day.  "  The  really 
important  thing  is  the  general  tendency 
of  the  two  parties.  As  regards  free 
silver  coinage,  for  example,  or  any 
other  aspect  of  the  currency  question, 
the  thing  to  look  at  is  which  party  in 
Congress  casts  the  larger  proportion  of 
votes  on  the  right  side.  That  is  the 
party  to  be  trusted." 

This  theory  sounds  plausible,  but  it 
does  not  accord  with  the  experience  of 
the  nation  as  shown  in  more  than  one 
emergency  during  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century.  Over  and  over  again  the 
country  has  found  that  its  preservation 
from  financial  perils  depended,  not 
jp  •>  which  party  had  control  of  Con 
gress,  but  upon  the  foresight  and 
courage  of  the  executive. 

Gen.  Grant  was  re-elected  to  the 
presidency  in  1872  upon  a  platform 
which  denounced  repudiation  of  the 
public  debt,  in  any  form  or  disguise,  as 
a  national  crime,  and  expressed  a  con 


fident  expectation  of  a  speedy  resump 
tion  of  specie  payment.  The  House  of 
Representatives  elected  at  the  same 
time  was  Republican  by  more  than  two 
to  one  and  the  Republican  majority  in 
the  Senate  was  almost  as  great.  Nev 
ertheless,  this  Congress,  under  the 
influence  of  the  hard  times  following 
the  panic  of  1873,  passed  in  the  spring 
of  1874  an  inflation  bill  which  invol 
ved  a  tampering  with  national  obliga 
tions  and  would  indefinitely  have  post 
poned  resumption.  Only  the  veto  of 
President  Grant  then  saved  the  country. 

The  first  Congress  under  President 
Hayes  was  Democratic  in  its  lower 
branch  and  almost  equally  divided  be 
tween  the  two  parties  in  the  Senate, 
The  slow  recovery  of  the  country  from 
the  business  depression  that  followed 
the  panic  kept  alive  the  demand  for  the 
repeal  of  the  resumption  act,  which  was 
favored  by  many  Republicans  in  Con 
gress,  as  well  as  by  most  of  the  Demo 
crats.  Test  votes  in  the  House  during 
the  autumn  of  1877  showed  that  a  bill 
for  such  repeal  could  pass  the  lower 
branch,  and  the  concurrence  of  the  Sen 
ate  was  to  be  feared.  The  movement 
failed,  however,  because  it  became 
known  that  the  President  would  block 
it  by  his  veto.  The  knowledge  that  Mr. 
Hayes  was  sound  upon  this  issue  saved 
the  country  from  the  threatened  peril. 

In  1890  the  Republicans  controlled 
presidency,  Senate,  and  House  together, 
for  the  first  time  in  many  years.  The 
feeling  in  favor  of  silver  was  so  strong 
in  the  Senate  that  a  free- coinage  act 
could  be  easily  passed,and  the  advocates 
of  such  a  measure  hoped  that  they  could 
carry  it  through  the  House.  For  weeks 
the  country  remained  in  uncertainty 
what  to  expect,  because  nobody  felt  any 
assurance  that  President  Harrison 
would  interpose  his  objection  to  the 
enactment  of  a  free-coinage  act  if  it 
could  be  got  through  Congress.  That 
mischievous  and  disastrous  compro 
mise,  the  silver-purchase  act,  was  finally 
devised  and  passed  for  the  simple  rea- 


10 


son,  as  Senator  Sherman  has  declared, 
that  "  the  silence  of  the  President  on 
the  matter  gave  rise  to  an  apprehension 
that,  if  a  free-coinage  bill  should  pass 
both  houses,  he  would  not  feel  at  liberty 
to  veto  it"  ;  and  that  "some  action  had 
to  be  taken  to  prevent  a  return  to  free- 
silver  coinage,  and  the  measure  evolved 
was  the  best  obtainable."  In  this  case 
the  fact  that  the  President  could  not 
be  depended  upon  involved  the  country 
in  all  the  misfortunes  that  followed  the 
passage  of  the  Sherman  act. 

Within  three  years  came  a  panic  to 
which  the  policy  embodied  in  the  silver- 
purchase  act  had  powerfully  contribut 
ed.  The  initiative  rested  with  the 
President.  Mr.  Cleveland  convened 
Congress  in  extra  session  for  the  ex 
press  purpose  of  repealing  this  act,  his 
proclamation  reciting  that  "  the  pre 
sent  perilous  condition  is  largely  the 
result,  of  a  financial  policy  which  the 
executive  branch  of  the  government 
finds  embodied  in  unwise  laws  which 
must  be  executed  until  repealed  by 
Congress."  By  his  firmness  Mr.  Cleve 
land  extorted  from  a  reluctant  Congress 
the  repeal  of  the  Sherman  act,  and  thus 
set  the  nation  on  the  road  to  financial 
recovery. 

We  do  not  need  to  multiply  such 
illustrations.  The  four  cases  which 
we  have  cited  show  the  supreme  im 
portance, of  having  a  President  who  is 
sound.  Such  a  President  saved  the 
country  from  inflation  in  1874,  and  from 
the  repeal  of  the  resumption  act  in 
1877.  Such  a  President  was  the  salva 
tion  of  the  nation  in  1893.  The  lack  of 
such  a  President  in  1890  involved  the 
country  in  a  disastrous  policy. 

The  great  objection  to  McKinley  as 
President  is  that  nobody  feels  any  con 
fidence  in  his  financial  soundness.  He 
voted  for  free  coinage  in  1877,  and  for 
the  silver-purchase  act  as  the  next 
best  thing  to  free  coinage  in  1890.  No 
body  would  argue  for  a  moment  that 
he  would  have  vetoed  the  inflation  act 
if  he  had  been  in  the  White  House,  in 


stead  of  Grant,  in  1874,  or  would  have 
prevented  the  repeal  of  the  resumption 
act  if  he  had  been  in  Hayes's  place  in 
1877.  The  business  interests  of  the 
United  States  should  not  be  subjected 
to  the  terrible  risks  involved  in  a  Presi 
dent  who  cannot  be  depended  upon. 


"DETERMINED  BY  LEGIS- 

LA  TIONr 

PUBLIC  attention  has  been  chiefly 
fixed  upon  that  part  of  McKinley's 
financial  platform  which  advocates 
"  bimetallism  "  and  the  idea  of  a  dou 
ble  standard.  There  is  another  feature 
of  the  resolution  adopted  by  the  Re 
publican  state  convention  in  Ohio  last 
March  that  should  not  escape  notice. 
We  refer  to  the  implied  pledge  that,  as 
President  of  the  United  States,  Mc 
Kinley  would  not  veto  any  act  regard 
ing  silver  that  might  be  passed  by 
Congress.  This  pledge  is  found  in  the 
words  italicized  below : 

uWe  contend  for  honest  money,  for  a 
currency  of  gold,  silver,  and  paper  with 
which  to  measure  our  exchanges  that 
shall  be  as  sound  as  the  government  and 
as  untarnished  as  its  honor;  and  to  that 
end  we  favor  bimetallism  and  demand 
the  use  of  both  gold  and  silver  as  standard 
money,  either  in  accordance  with  a  ratio 
to  be  fixed  by  an  international  agreement 
(if  that  can  be  obtained)  or  under  such  re 
strictions  and  such  provisions  to  be  determined 
by  legislation  as  will  secure  the  mainte 
nance  of  the  parities  of  values  of  the  two 
metals,  so  that  the  purchasing  and  debt- 
paying  power  of  the  dollar,  whether  of 
silver,  gold,  or  paper,  shall  be  at  all  times 
equal." 

The  meaning  of  any  expression  is  de 
termined  not  only  by  its  ordinary  sig 
nification,  but  also  by  the  sped?1  .'.. 
cumstances  under  which  it  is  employed. 
"Legislation/'  according  to  the  diction 
aries,  means  the  exercise  of  the  power 
of  legislating,  or  the  product  of  such 
legislative  action.  In  most  of  the  states 
the  executive  has  something  to  say 
about  legislation,  as  he  may  veto  a  bill, 


11 


and  it  can  then  become  a  law  only  by 
repassage,  and  usually  by  a  two-thirds 
vote.  But  in  Ohio  the  Governor  has 
never  possessed  any  such  check  upon 
the  process  of  law-making.  "  Legisla 
tion"  as  it  has  always  been  in  Ohio, 
means  the  passage  of  a  bill  by  both 
branches  of  the  legislative  department. 
The  character  of  the  man  who  stands 
on  the  Ohio  platform  shows  that  the 
phrase  "  to  be  determined  by  legisla 
tion  "  would  inevitably  mean  in  Mc- 
Kinley's  case  the  application  to  federal 
affairs  of  the  system  in  his  own  state 
by  which  the  executive  does  not  med 
dle  with  the  action  of  the  legislative 
body.  No  man  as  President  will  ever 
exercise  the  veto  power  unless  he  be  by 
nature  a  man  of  strong  convictions  and 
great  independence.  Such  an  act  sub 
jects  him  to  the  imputation  of  "setting 
himself  up  as  knowing  more  than  Con 
gress,"  and  of  "  defeating  the  will  of  a 
majority  of  the  people's  representa 
tives." 

McKinley  entered  public  life  by  elec 
tion  to  the  lower  branch  of  Congress 
twenty  years  ago.  During  that  long 
period  he  has  never  given  a  single  exhi 
bition  of  independence.  On  the  con 
trary,  from  first  to  last  his  conduct  has 
been  that  of  a  man  whose  sole  aim  was 
to  be  "  in  close  touch  with  the  people," 
whether  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  peo 
ple  favored  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  as 
in  1877,  and  the  purchase  of  silver  bul 
lion,  as  in  1890,  or  opposed  free  coinage, 
aswhen  he  wason  the  stump  in  1891.  An 
elaborate  biography  of  this  Ohio  Na 
poleon  has  been  published,  but  it  cites 
no  case  where  he  showed  the  qualities 
of  a  commander  in  leading  his  forces 
into  action  or  restraining  impetuous 
subordinates  from  dashing  into  danger. 
His  very  nature  shows  that  as  execu 
tive  of  the  United  States  he  would  be 
only  what  the  executive  of  Ohio  is  as 
regards  legislation,  a  nonentity,  and 
that  any  silver  measure  which  could  be 
pushed  through  Congress  would  be 
sure  of  becoming  a  law. 


There  are  people  who  believe  in  the 
theory  of  a  President  who  will  pledge 
himself  not  to  veto  a  silver  bill,  or  who 
is  known  to  be  so  weak-backed  that 
such  a  pledge  is  not  necessary..  Ex- 
Lieutenant-Governor  Black  of  Pennsyl 
vania  came  out  the  other  day  in  favor 
of  an  agreement  that  "our  [Demo 
cratic]  candidate  for  President  is  not, 
if  elected,  to  interpose  his  veto  to  em 
barrass  or  defeat  any  financial  legisla 
tion  which  may  be  sent  him  by  the 
votes  of  a  majority  of  the  Democratic 
members  of  Congress."  Senator  Jones 
of  Arkansas  endorses  this  proposition, 
and  would  have  the  Democratic  con 
vention  declare  explicitly  against  any 
use  of  the  veto  power  "  except  in  cases 
involving  constitutional  questions  or 
for  the  purpose  of  checking  hasty  and 
impulsive  legislation." 

But  a  week's  discussion  proved  long 
enough  to  show  that  such  a  policy 
would  be  rejected  with  contempt  by 
the  people.  Senator  Jones  is  of  the 
opinion  that  the  people  resent  the  use 
of  the  veto  power.  The  truth  is  that 
the  history  of  the  country  for  the  past 
quarter  of  a  century  shows  that  the 
people  regard  the  veto  power  as  one  of 
the  greatest  safeguards  of  our  govern 
ment,  and  that  nothing  strengthens  a 
candidate  for  executive  office  more 
than  the  knowledge  that  he  is  strong 
enough  to  use  this  power.  It  was  the 
veto  power  alone  that  saved  the  nation 
from  a  terrible  financial  disaster  when 
a  Republican  President  in  1874  thus 
blocked  the  enactment  of  an  inflation 
bill  passed  by  an  overwhelmingly  Re 
publican  Congress,  and  no  other  act  in 
his  civil  career  gave  General  Grant 
such  a  hold  upon  the  respect  of  the 
people.  It  was  the  assurance  that 
Cleveland  would  use  this  power,  if 
necessary,  to  block  any  dangerous 
silver  legislation  that  brought  him  the 
support  uf  the  business  community  in 
1892,  and  swelled  his  majorities  to  such 
large  proportions. 

The  election  of  McKinley  as  Presi- 


dent  would  mean  the  occupancy  of  the 
executive  chair  for  four  years  by  a  man 
who  would  never  be  a  check  upon  the 
legislative  body,  and  whose  signature 
could  be  counted  upon  for  any  bill  that 
was  passed  by  a  majority  of  "  the  peo 
ple's  representatives."  A  McKinley  in 
Grant's  place  in  1874  would  have  set 
the  nation  back  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
A  President  with  the  independence 
that  Grant  showed  in  1874  may  be 
quite  as  necessary  to  the  safety  of  the 
country  from  1897  to  1901. 


McKINLEY'S  WEAKNESS. 

THERE  are  gratifying  signs  that  the 
weakness  of  McKinley  as  a  presidential 
candidate,  because  of  his  record  and 
present  position  on  the  financial  ques 
tion,  is  corning  to  be  generally  realized 
by  thoughtful  Republicans.  The  can 
vass  for  his  nomination  at  St.  Louis  is 
fast  changing  from  an  enthusiastic 
movement  for  the  champion  of  protec 
tion  to  a  defensive  campaign,  which 
seeks  to  excuse  his  admitted  shuffling 
in  the  past  and  his  vagueness  now  on 
the  far  more. vital  question  of  the  cur 
rency. 

Gen.  H.  V.  Boynton  is  one  of  the 
most  intelligent  and  candid  observers 
of  public  sentiment  among  the  Wash 
ington  correspondents.  Writing  to  the 
Cincinnati  Commercial  Gazette,  the 
leading  Republican  newspaper  in  Mc 
Kinley 's  state,  he  reports  that  "  there 
is  a  growing  belief  here,  which  has 
already  become  a  conviction  in  many 
minds,  that  New  England,  New  York, 
and  New  Jersey  cannot  be  carried  for 
the  Republicans  on  the  Ohio  money 
platform";  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
"  the  silver  leaders  have  not  been  cap 
tured  or  even  conciliated  by  it."  Of  the 
outlook  for  the  national  convention  he 
says  : 

"  The  firm  belief  is  that  the  St.  Louis 
platform  will  give  no  uncertain  sound  in 
its  plank  defining  the  relations  between 
gold  and  silver.  If  this  occurs,  it  will  be 


awkward  for  Ohio,  and  as  matters  now 
stand,  embarrassing  for  Ohio's  candidate. 
If  it  does  not  occur,  the  Democrats  are 
likely  to  join  issue  at  Chicago  with  a 
straght-out  sound-money  plank.  In  that 
case  he  would  be  a  bold  prophet  who 
would  declare  that  Republican  success 
was  assured.  The  campaign  would  be 
defensive  from  the  start.  Under  present 
conditions  such  might  easily  be  a  losing 
campaign." 

The  supporters  of  McKinley  in  the 
press  betray  a  growing  apprehension  of 
the  bad  effect  produced  by  the  disclos 
ure  of  his  financial  record,  and  make 
feeble  attempts  to  explain  it  away.  The 
Chicago  Evening  Post,  for  example, 
wants  to  know  why,  in  compiling  Mc 
Kinley 's  financial  record,  we  did  not 
quote  a  stump  speech  that  he  delivered 
at  Niles,  Ohio,  in  August,  1891,  when 
he  declared  himself  against  free  coinage 
and  argued  that  the  adoption  of  this 
policy  would  be  disastrous  to  the  coun- 
'try.  Simply  because  such  a  campaign 
speech  is  of  no  consequence  in  estimat 
ing  McKinley 's  fitness  for  the  presi 
dency.  It  meant  only  that  at  that  time 
he  thought  free  coinage  was  not  popu 
lar.  One  of  his  chief  journalistic 
defenders  has  said,  with  entire  truth, 
that  "  McKinley 's  record  in  Congress 
on  the  silver  question  showed  him  to 
be  moving  in  close  contact  with  the 
general  public  sentiment  of  the  country, 
to  be  in  close  touch  with  the  people." 
If  public  sentiment  in  Ohio  in  August, 
1891,  had  seemed  favorable  to  free 
coinage,  McKinley  would  undoubtedly 
not  have  opposed  it,  but  would  have 
advocated  it  and  "would  have  pointed 
with  pride  '  to  his  course  in  Congress 
in  June,  1890,  when,  as  chairman  of  the 
ways  and  means  committee  and  leader 
of  the  House,  he  earnestly  advocated 
the  passage  of  the  silver-purchase  act 
as  better  than  the  Bland-Allison  act, 
and  the  next  best  thing  to  free  coinage, 
saying  of  it : 

"  We  cannot   have   free  coinage   now, 
except  in  the  manner  provided  in  the  bill. 


13 


To  defeat  this  bill  means  to  defeat  all  sil 
ver  legislation  and  to  leave  us  with  two 
millions  a  month  only,  when  by  passing 
this  bill  we  would  have  four  and  a  half 
millions  a  month  of  Treasury  notes  as 
good  as  gold." 

Nobody  cares  what  may  have  been 
said  on  the  stump  in  1891  by  a  man 
whose  attitude  at  any  time  only  reflects 
his  conception  of  what  is  for  the  mo 
ment  the  most  popular  policy  with  the 
majority.  The  important  thing  about 
an  aspirant  for  the  presidency  is  his 
previous  official  record  and  the  plat 
form  on  which  he  seeks  the  office. 
McKinley  voted  for  free  coinage  out 
right  as  a  member  of  Congress  in  1877, 
and  for  the  silver-purchase  act  as  the 
nearest  thing  to  free  coinage  that  could 
be  secured  in  1890.  He  asks  the 
Republican  nomination  for  the  presi 
dency  in  1896,  on  a  platform  which 
declares  that  "  we  favor  bimetallism 
and  demand  the  use  of  both  gold  and 
silver  as  standard  money,"  and  which 
Would  secure  this  impracticable  double 
standard  either  by  international  action, 
if  that  can  be  obtained,  as  everybody 
knows  it  cannot  be,  "or  under  such 
restrictions,  and  such  provisions,  to  be 
determined  by  legislation,  as  will  secure 
the  maintenance  of  the  parities  of  values 
of  the  two  metals" — a  provision  which 
would  allow  him  as  President  to  sign 
another  such  dangerous  act  as  he  sent 
to  Harrison  for  his  signature  six  years 
ago. 

A  childish  defense  of  McKinley  is 
made  by  another  Chicago  newspaper, 
the  Times-Herald,  which  quotes  from 
a  speech  delivered  by  him  in  the  fall 
of  1892,  in  which  he  said  that  free 
coinage  would  be  bad,  and  excuses  his 
dilatoriness  in  reaching  this  position 
by  the  plea  that  "the  real  scope  of  the 
baleful  effects  of  unlimited  coinage  of 
silver  was  not  perceived  until  1892." 
Perhaps  not  by  McKinley,  but  the 
baleful  effects  of  coining  no  more  than 
$2,000,000  worth  a  month  of  short- 
weight  silver  dollars  were  clearly  per 


ceived  by  Hayes  when  he  vetoed  the 
act  for  which  McKinley  voted  in  1878, 
on  the  ground  that  "  a  currency  worth 
less  than  it  purports  to  be  worth  will 
in  the  end  defraud  not  only  creditors, 
•tmt  all  who  are  engaged  in  legitimate 
business " ;  by  Arthur  from  1881  to 
1884,  when  he  each  year  urged  Con 
gress  to  repeal  this  limited-coinage 
act  because  of  the  disasters  that  it 
threatened  ;  and  by  Cleveland  in  Feb 
ruary,  1885,  when  he  wrote  the  Warner 
letter  urging  upon  the  Democrats  in 
Congress  the  duty  of  immediately  sus 
pending  silver  coinage  because  a  con 
tinuance  of  the  policy  would  inevitably 
bring  the  terrible  financial  crisis  that 
finally  came.  We  cannot  afford  to 
have  as  President  a  man  who  did  not 
discover  until  1891  or  1892  the  danger 
that  was  plain  to  Hayes  in  1878,  to 
Arthur  in  1881-4,  and  to  Cleveland  in 
1885. 

The  final  argument  upon  which  the 
defenders  of  McKinley  fall  back  is  the 
assertion,  as  made  by  the  New  York 
Tribune  the  other  day,  that  "  the  peo 
ple  know  they  can  trust  the  Republican 
party,  whether  one  man  be  elected 
President  or  another";  and  that,  "if 
the  money  question  alone  were  to  be 
considered,  the  country  would  be  safer 
by  far  in  the  hands  of  a  Republican 
Congress,  even  with  the  least  trust 
worthy  of  all  the  Republican  candidates 
elected  President,  than  it  would  be  in 
the  hands  of  a  Democratic  Congress 
with  the  best  President  that  party 
could  possibly  select."  But  this  asser 
tion  is  easily  disproved  by  a  reference 
to  recent  history.  It  was  an  over 
whelmingly  Republican  Congress 
which  passed  the  inflation  act  of  1874; 
and  a  McKinley  in  the  White  House 
would  have  signed  that  act  without 
question.  On  the  other  hand,  while  a 
Democratic  Congress  passed  the  bill  to 
coin  the  seigniorage  in  1894,  the  country 
knew  that  it  was  safe  because  Cleve 
land  could  be  trusted  to  imitate  Grant's 
example  of  twenty  years  before  and 


14 


block  the  scheme  by   the  use  of  the 
veto  power. 

The  more  the  McKinley  organs  try 
to  explain  and  excuse  away  the  financial 
record  of  the  Ohio  man,  the  more  plain 
do  they  make  his  lack  both  of  common 
sense  and  of  backbone.  His  advocates 
are  now  exposing  his  weakness  so 
clearly  that  everybody  can  see  it. 


THE  WA  Y  TO  BEA  T  McKINLE  Y. 

Two  months  before  the  Republican 
national  convention  of  1896  the  chances 
seem  to  favor  the  nomination  of  Wil 
liam  McKinley  for  the  presidency.  Two 
months  before  the  corresponding  con 
vention  in  1876  the  chances  seemed  to 
favor  the  nomination  of  James  G. 
Elaine.  The  nomination  of  Elaine, 
nevertheless,  was  prevented  in  1876. 
The  nomination  of  McKinley  can  be 
prevented  in  1896. 

Twenty  years  ago  "  favorite  sons " 
were  entered  by  several  states — Conk- 
ling  by  New  York,  Jewell  by  Connecti 
cut,  Hartranft  by  Pennsylvania,  Hayes 
by  Ohio,  Morton  by  Indiana,  and  Bris- 
tow  by  Kentucky.  This  year  the  leader 
is  also  opposed  by  local  favorites — Reed 
of  Maine,  Morton  of  New  York,  Quay 
of  Pennsylvania,  Allison  of  Iowa, 
Cullom  of  Illinois,  and  Bradley  of 
Kentucky.  In  1876  one  of  the  favorite 
sons  finally  came  in  ahead  of  the  man 
who  was  the  leader  at  the  start. 

What  beat  Elaine  twenty  years  ago, 
however,  was  not  the  fact  that  the 
Republican  managers  in  many  states 
opposed  his  nomination.  It  did  not 
hurt  him  with  the  masses  of  the  party 
that  Conkling  was  against  him  in  New 
York,  Cameron  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
Morton  in  Indiana.  What  prevented 
the  convention  from  nominating  him 
was  the  fact  that  a  strong  element  of 
conservative  men  considered  him  an 
unworthy  and  dangerous  leader.  His 
defeat  was  foreshadowed  when  the 
Massachusetts  Republican  state  con 
vention  elected  as  delegates-at-large 


Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr.,  E.  Rockwood 
Hoar,  John  M.  Forbes,  and  President 
Chadbourne  of  Williams  College,  and 
adopted  this  resolution  : 

"  That  this  convention  leaves  the  dele 
gates  of  Massachusetts  to  the  Republican 
national  convention  unpledged  and  unin- 
structed  in  respect  of  individual  candi 
dates  for  President  and  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States  ;  but  expects  and  re 
quires  them  each  and  all  to  work  and  vote 
for  those  candidates,  and  those  only, 
whose  character  and  career  give  unques 
tionable  assurance  to  the  whole  country 
that  they  will  be  faithful  and  zealous  to 
maintain  the  equal  rights  of  all  citizens 
under  the  constitution  ;  to  bring  about 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments  at  a 
day  not  later  than  that  already  fixed  by 
law,  and  to  effect  a  thorough  and  radical 
reform  in  the  civil  service,  to  the  end 
that  the  administration  of  public  affairs 
may  be  jharacterized  by  efficiency,  econ 
omy,  and  purity." 

Conkling  and  Cameron  and  Morton 
and  the  rest  of  the  party  bosses  could 
not  by  themselves  have  beaten  Elaine 
in  1876.  Platt  and  Quay  and  Clarkson 
and  the  other  bosses  of  to-day  who  op 
pose  McKinley  cannot  by  themselves 
beat  the  Ohio  candidate  now.  But 
there  is  an  element  in  the  Republican 
party  which  can  again  turn  the  scales 
if  it  will.  The  men  who  want,  first  of 
all,  a  President  who  is  safe,  a  President 
upon  whom  they  can  depend  in  any 
financial  emergency,  can  yet  prevent 
the  nomination  of  McKinley  if  they 
exert  their  power. 

We  publish  elsewhere  a  brief  sum 
mary  of  McKinley 's  financial  record, 
and  we  beg  every  business  man  to  study 
it  with  attention.  It  shows  that  in  his 
first  year  of  his*  congressional  service 
he  voted  for  the  free  coinage  ol  silver; 
that  the  next  year  he  voted  against 
sustaining  President  Hayes's  veto  of 
the  Bland-Allison  act;  that  ten  years 
later  he  condemned  Cleveland  for  urg 
ing  the  repeal  of  the  act  vetoed  by 
Hayes;  and  that  in  his  last  term  as  a 
Representative  he  advocated  the  silver- 


15 


purchase  act  as  the  next  best  thing  to 
free  coinage,  and  better  than  the 
Bland- Allison  act  because  it  provided 
a  market  for  more  silver. 

McKinley  was  wrong  on  the  tariff 
issue  when  he  was  in  Congress,  and 
would  be  wrong  as  President.  But 
that  is  a  matter  of  little  consequence 
compared  with  the  financial  issue.  The 
country  can  stand  another  high  tariff 
if  it  must  come,  and  it  might  come  with 
any  Republican  in  the  White  House. 
But  it  cannot  stand  four  years  of  doubt 
and  uncertainty  as  to  the  President's 
position  regarding  the  currency  ;  four 
years  during  which  it  would  always 
dread  that  the  executive  might  sign  a 
free-coinage  act  if  it  could  be  got 
through  Congress,  or  encourage  the 
framing  of  another  "  cowardly  compro 
mise,"  like  the  silver-purchase  act 
devised  by  Senator  Sherman  in  1890, 
"to  prevent  a  return  to  free  silver 
coinage,"  which,  he  says,  was,  then 
threatened  by  the  silence  of  President 
Harrison. 

No  defence  is  possible  of  McKinley 's 
financial  record.  None  is  attempted 
by  his  supporters  beyond  the  plea,  to 
quote  from  the  Chicago  Inter  Ocean, 
that  "  he  was  in  happy  accord  with  a 
great  majority  of  the  Republican 
party,"  was  "  moving  in  close  contact 
with  the  general  public  sentiment  of 
the  country,"  and  "showed  himself  to 
be  in  close  touch  with  the  people." 
His  most  earnest  advocates  thus  admit 
that  he  is  a  man  who  utterly  lacks 
independence  and  courage,  and  whose 
first  aim  as  President  would  be  to  learn 
what  policy  seemed  to  be  most  popular. 
It  is  enough  to  make  every  business 
man  in  the  country  shudder  to  think 
of  having  such  a  man  in  the  White 
House  for  four  years. 

Hitherto  we  have  always  had  Presi 
dents,  whether  Republican  or  Demo 
cratic,  who  were  sound  on  the  financial 
issue,  with  the  single  exception  of 
Harrison's  weakness  in  the  summer  of 
1890.  For  that  temporary  weakness 


the  country  paid  dearly,  and  the  debt 
is  not  yet  liquidated.  McKinley  as 
President  means  four  years  of  Harri 
son  at  his  weakest.  It  is  an  appalling 
prospect.  The  nation  ought  to  be 
saved  from  it,  and  can  be  saved.  Let 
the  business  men  among  the  Republi 
cans  of  New  York,  Brooklyn,  Phila 
delphia,  Boston,  Chicago,  and  every 
other  city  of  the  country  at  once 
organize  their  forces  and  insist  that, 
whoever  the  candidate  of  the  St.' Louis 
convention  may  be,  he  must  not  be  the 
man  whose  record  would  make  his 
election  usher  in  four  years  of  doubt 
as  to  the  safety  of  our  currency  system. 


THE  ROAD    TO    VICTORY. 

THE  first  essential  to  the  restoration 
of  prosperity  in  the  United  States  is 
assurance  of  the  stability  of  the  curren 
cy.  Such  assurance  has  not  existed 
for  years.  The  lack  of  it  was  the  chief 
cause  for  the  panic  of  1893,  and  con 
tinues  the  main  reason  for  the  prolong 
ation  of  the  business  depression. 

What  threatens  the  stability  of  the 
currency  is  the  demand  of  a  large  ele 
ment  among  the  voters  for  the  free 
coinage  of  silver  at  the  ratio  of  1 6  to  i, 
which  would  involve  the  substitution  of 
the  silver  standard  for  the  gold  one;  and 
the  readiness  of  prominent  politicians 
in  each  party,  including  the  leading  Re 
publican  candidate  for  the  presidency, 
to  compromise  with  this  dishonest 
demand  by  favoring  a  "  bimetallism" 
that  is  necessarily  incompatible  with 
the  maintenance  of  the  gold  standard. 
The  election  as  President  of  a  man 
whose  record  makes  such  a  platform 
the  only  one  on  which  he  could  consis 
tently  run,  would  mean  four  years  of 
constant  apprehension  as  to  the  safety 
of  our  financial  system. 

The  one  sure  way  of  averting  this 
peril  is  the  election  of  a  man  who  can 
be  trusted,  upon  a  platform  which 
pledges  his  party  against  free  coinage 
and  for  the  maintenance  of  the  gold 


16 


standard.  Such  a  result  would  estab 
lish  the  credit  of  the  nation'  beyond 
question,  and  this  would  of  itself 
introduce  a  period  of  great  prosperity. 
Secretary  Smith  of  the  Interior  Depart 
ment  has  (xpressed  the  opinion  that 
"the  nomination  and  election  by  either 
party  of  a  sound-money  man,  on  a 
platform  declaring  briefly  and  clearly 
that  the  dollar  of  this  country  should 
consist  of  25.8  grains  of  gold,  and  that 
no  legislation  should  be  undertaken  to 
depreciate  this  dollar,  would  increase 
business  values  in  the  United  States 
25  per  cent,  at  once."  We  believe  that 
this  is  an  underestimate  of  the  good 
that  would  be  accomplished. 

During  the  summer  of  1868  gold 
ranged  at  a  premium  of  between  40  and 
50.  There  was  an  active  agitation  for 
the  payment  of  government  bonds  in 
the  depreciated  greenback  currency. 
Butler  in  the  Republican  party  and 
Pendleton  in  the  Democratic  advocated 
the  adoption  of  the  policy.  Pendleton 
carried  his  party  with  him,  and  secured 
the  adoption  of  a  platform  by  the  De 
mocratic  national  convention  which 
declared  that  "  where  the  obligations 
of  the  government  do  not  expressly 
state  upon  their  face,  or  the  law  under 
which  they  were  issued  does  not  provide 
that  they  shall  be  paid  in  coin,  they 
ought,  in  right  and  in  justice,  to  be 
paid  in  the  lawful  money  of  the  United 
States" — meaning  greenbacks,  instead 
of  gold,  the  only  coin  then  current  ; 
demanded  taxation  of  government 
bonds  ;  and  raised  the  clap-trap  cry  of 
"  one  currency  for  the  government  and 
the  people,  the  laborer  and  the  office 
holder,  the  pensioner  and  the  soldier, 
the  producer  and  the  bondholder." 

The  Republicans  snubbed  Butler, 
and  nominated  Grant  upon  a  platform 
which  contained  this  clear  and  explicit 
declaration  in  favor  of  paying  the  bonds 
in  gold  : 

"  We  denounce  all  forms  of  repudiation 
as  a  national  crime  ;  and  the  national 
honor  requires  the  payment  of  the  public 


indebtedness  in  the  uttermost  good  faith 
to  all  creditors  at  home  and  abroad,  not 
only  according  to  the  letter,  but  the  spirit 
of  the  laws  under  which  it  was  con 
tracted." 

Although  Seymour,  whom  the  Demo 
crats  nominated,  did  not  believe  in  the 
greenback  policy,  he  "stood  upon  the 
platform"  and  declared,  in  accepting 
the  nomination,  that  "the  resolutions 
are  in  accord  with  my  views."  The 
issue  therefore  entered  into  the  can 
vass,  and  resulted  in  a  strong  move 
ment  bv  business  men  to  defeat  the 
Democrats  on  this  ground.  Only  New 
York  and  New  Jersey  of  all  the  North 
ern  states  were  returned  for  Seymour* 
and  his  majority  in  the  latter  was 
small,  while  the  count  of  New  York 
for  him  has  always  been  considered 
fraudulent  by  many. 

The  first  [act  passed  by  Congress  a 
fortnight  after  Grant's  inauguration  in 
March,  1869,  was  "an  act  to  strengthen 
the  public  credit  of  the  United  States," 
which  redeemed  the  pledge  of  the  Re 
publican  platform  by  declaring  that 
"  the  faith  of  the  United  States  is 
solemnly  pledged  to  the  payment  in 
coin  or  its  equivalent  of  all  the  obliga 
tions  of  the  United  States  not  bearing 
interest,  known  as  United  States  notes, 
and  of  all  the  interest-bearing  obliga 
tions  of  the  United  States  except  in 
cases  where  the  law  authorizing  the 
issue  of  any  such  obligation  has 
expressly  provided  that  the  same  may 
be  paid  in  lawful  money  or  other  cur 
rency  than  gold  and  silver";  and  that 
"the  United  States  also  solemnly 
pledges  its  faith  to  make  provision  at 
the  earliest  practicable  period  for  the 
redemption  of  the  United  States  notes 
in  coin." 

The  consequences  of  this  victory  for 
sound  money  were  immediate  and  last 
ing.  The  premium  on  gold,  which  had 
ranged  between  40  and  50  during  the 
summer  before  the  presidential  elec 
tion,  fell  to  an  average  of  below  35  in 
the  month  after  that  election  occurred, 


and  was  down  to  13  within  a  year  after 
Grant's  inauguration;  while  specie 
payments  were  resumed  only  ten  years 
later.  The  Republican  party,  no  less 
than  the  country,  found  that  honesty 
was  the  best  policy  in  a  series  of  great 
victories,  while  the  Democratic  party 
has  not  to  this  day  fully  recovered  from 
the  discredit  brought  upon  it  by  its 
tenderness  towards  repudiation  nearly 
thirty  years  ago. 

The  Republicans  can  make  history 
repeat  itself  this  year.  Bland,  as  a  later 
Pendleton,  will  go  to  the  national  De 
mocratic  convention  as  the  advocate  of 
free  silver  coinage,  and  will  have  a  large 
element  of  his  party  with  him  in  this 
later  movement  for  repudiation.  The 


masses  of  the  Republican  partyare  sound 
on  this  issue.  They  are  sick  of  "strad 
dles"  and  "dodges."  They  are  tired  of 
the  deceptive  talk  about  "bi-metallism." 
They  are  ready  to  welcome  as  clear  and 
emphatic  a  declaration  for  national 
honesty  as  was  adopted  by  their  party 
in  1868.  Upon  such  a  declaration,  and 
with  a  candidate  who  can  be  trusted 
upon  this  issue  as  implicitly  as  Grant 
showed  that  he  could  be  trusted,  the 
Republicans  can  sweep  the  country. 

The  road  to  prosperity  for  party  and 
and  for  country  is  a  plain  one.  "He 
serves  his  party  best  who  serves  his 
country  best."  The  Republicans  found 
this  to  be  the  case  in  1868.  It  will 
prove  as  true  in  1896. 


A    HOME   VIEW   OF   McKINLEY. 

Ohio's  Candidate  as  His  Old  Neighbors  See  Him. 


I. 


How  the  Major  Secured  the  Support  of  His 
State  for  the  Presidency. 

COLUMBUS,  O.,  April  10. 

Two  facts  must  be  obvious  to  every 
one  who  studies  the  political  situation  in 
Ohio  to-day  :  first,  that  Major  McKinley 
has  not  his  State  behind  him  in  his  presi 
dential  fight,  in  any  save  the  strictly  me 
chanical  sense  ;  and  second,  that  the 
so-called  "harmony"  which  has  followed 
the  long  factional  feud  in  the  Republican 
party  in  Ohio  is  due  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  disbelief  of  the  anti-McKinley  fac 
tion  that  the  Major  will  get  the  nomina 
tion  at  St.  Louis.  By  this  is  meant,  not 
that  the  anti-McKinley  men  will  be  un 
true  to  their  pledges,  but  that  the  fight  is 
regarded  by  them  as  hopeless  from  the 
start,  and  that  the'  perfunctory  votes 
which  they  will  cast  for  the  state's  candi 
date  will  not  have  to  be  long  continued. 

The  fact  that  McKinley  is  to  have  the 
vote  of  the  full  Ohio  delegation  at  all  is  a 
mere  matter  of  bargain  and  sale.  When 
the  Republican  state  convention  was  held 
last  year,  the  terms  of  the  bargain  were 
struck,  whereby  the  anti-McKinley  ele 
ment  were  to  be  given  the  governorship 
in  exchange  for  a  McKinley  delegation  to 
the  national  convention.  Both  sides  lived 
up  to  the  agreement.  Bushnell  was  nom 
inated  by  the  anti-McKinleyites,  and  the 
latter  responded  this  year  by  putting  no 
obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  McKinley 
presidential  boom.  But  any  one  who 
supposes  that,  because  Mr.  Foraker  and 
leading  members  of  his  clan  are  to  sit  in 
the  national  convention,  and  go  through 
the  form  of  voting  for  McKinley  when 
the  roll  of  states  is  called,  they  are  to-day 
enjoying  their  candidate's  confidence  as 
to  his  plan  of  campaign,  or  that  either 
party  to  the  compact  is  at  all  deceived  as 
to  the  real  attitude  of  the  other,  is  sadly 
out  of  touch  with  conditions  here.  It  is 
not  peace,  but  an  armed  truce,  which 
keeps  McKinley  at  the  front  as  the  "  fa 
vorite  son"  of  his  state  instead  of  a 
mere  ambitious  factional  leader;  it  is 
state  pride,  and  not  personal  regard, 
which  holds  together  even  some  parts  of 


his  own  nominal  following;  and  the  ped 
estal  upon  which  he  has  laboriously 
clambered  is  so  honeycombed  with  apa 
thy,  distrust,  and  contempt  that,  at  the 
first  evidence  of  unexpected  strength  on 
the  part  of  one  of  the  other  candidates  at 
St.  Louis,  it  is  liable  to  go  to  pieces  and 
drop  the  statuesque  pseudo-Napoleon 
suddenly  to  the  ground. 

The  secret  of  the  feeling  about  Mc 
Kinley  here  is  the  same  that  accounts  for 
the  indifference  with  which  he  is  re 
garded  at  Washington,  and  the  inability  of 
any  one  there  except  his  archangel,  Gros- 
venor,  to  conceive  of  his  nomination  as  a 
strong  probability;  the  people  in  both 
places  know  him.  To  them  there  is  no 
ideal  McKinley,  reeking  with  heroic 
statesmanship  and  exhaling  an  atmos 
phere  of  irreproachable  virtue,  such  as 
has  been  conjured  before  the  minds  of 
the  credulous  populace  in  other  parts  of 
the  country.  They  know  the  Major  for 
a  very  small  pattern  of  a  man,  the  em 
bodiment  of  mediocrity  in  talents,  in 
learning,  and  in  character;  an  orator 
whose  stock  in  trade  consists  wholly  of 
phrases,  not  of  thoughts;  a  politician  of 
the  narrowest  and  most  shifty  stripe; 
and  a  self-seeker  before  everything  else. 
He  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  that  rare 
specimen — a  public  man  without  enemies. 
But  in  such  measure  as  this  is  true  it  is 
the  evidence  of  his  greatest  weakness, 
not  of  strength.  It  is  because  he  lacks 
the  decided  convictions  and  personal 
force  which  make  enemies,  that  he  is  also 
to-day,  after  twenty-odd  years  of  more  or 
less  conspicuous  political  service  at  home 
and  in  Washington,  without  admiring 
and  devoted  friends. 

His  antagonist  in  state  politics,  ex-Gov. 
Foraker,  does  not  soar  to  sublime  heights 
of  statesmanship  himself ;  but  when  it 
comes  to  a  following  who  are  ready  to  go 
with  him  through  thick  and  thin,  to  share 
his  isolation  in  defeat  as  well  as  his  exal 
tation  in  the  hour  of  victory,  he  is  worth 
two  McKinleys.  At  all  events,  every  one 
knows  where  to  find  Foraker  when  a  fight 
is  on  ;  nobody  knows  where  to  find  Mc 
Kinley.  What  is  true  in  party  politics  is 
quite  as  true  in  business  ;  and  in  spite  of 
his  idiosyncrasies,  it  will  be  found  to  be 


a  fact  that  Foraker  has  five  good  business 
men  in  his  following  to  McKinley's  one. 
Foraker's  limitations  are  well  known, 
and  he  has  often  a  brutal  frankness  in 
putting  his  case  ;  but  he  wears  no  cloak 
and  mask.  Nothing,  therefore,  makes 
the  average  Ohioan,  who  knows  both 
men,  grit  his  teeth  so  savagely  as  to  be 
told  that  Republicans  of  other  states  sym 
pathize  more  with  McKinley  than  with 
Foraker  because  McKinley  is  so  much 
the  more  respectable  figure  in  American 
politics.  The  Ohioan  knows  better.  He 
knows  that  personally  and  politically  the 
two  men  are  on  a  dead  level,  and  that 
Foraker  has  at  least  the  negative  virtue 
of  not  being  ashamed  to  expose  his  meth 
ods  and  machinery  to  view. 

It  would  not  surprise  any  one  here  if 
the  renewal  of  hostilities,  in  a  decorous 
and  deprecatory  way,  should  occur  before 
the  two  factions  walk  into  convention  arm 
in  arm  ;  and  a  clash  now,  while  it  would 
not  release  the  anti-McKinleyites  from 
their  bargain  concerning  the  convention, 
would  certainly  not  help  bind  the  delega 
tion  any  more  firmly  together. 

The  Foraker  people  will  not  admit  that 
they  have  any  second  choice  among  the 
candidates  ;  but  there  is  very  good  reason 
to  believe  that  this  attitude  is  maintained 
out  of  regard  for  what  they  deem  their 
present  obligation,  and  that  Reed  would 
be  the  most  likely  beneficiary  by  the  dele 
gation's  breaking  in  pieces  after  a  suffi 
cient  number  of  ballots  had  been  cast.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  delegation 
will  not  go  on  to  St  Louis  under  any  defi 
nite  instructions.  The  same  motive  of 
state  pride  which  holds  it  together  at  the 
start  might  operate  to  save  the  vice- 
presidency  for  Ohio  if  it  were  obvious  that 
the  presidency  must  go  elsewhere.  Hence 
if,  after  a  few  ineffectual  ballots,  Reed 
should  begin  to  gain  votes,  and  an  offer 
should  come  from  the  Reed  camp  to  make 
the  ticket  "  Reed  and  Bushnell,"  it  would 
possibly  present  a  temptation  too  strong 
to  resist.  Mr.  Bushnell,  it  is  believed, 
would  make  a  much  stronger  run  in  the 
East  to-morrow  than  McKinley,  from  the 
fact  that  he  is  an  out-and-out  gold-stand 
ard  man,  while  McKinley  has  wobbled, 
and  is  still  wobbling,  so  persistently  on 
the  money  question  that  no  one  knows 
precisely  where  to  place  him. 


II. 

Flat  Failure  as  a  business  Man —  The  Debt 
or  a)id  tJie  Machine. 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  u. 
TURNING  from  Major  McKinley's  varie 
gated  and  uncertain  views  on  the  finances 
of  the  nation  to  see  where  he  stands  with 
respect  to  his  own,  every  visitor  to  Ohio 


must  be  impressed  with  the  universal 
verdict  of  the  Major's  neighbors  that  he 
is  "  no  business  man."  This  remark  is 
almost  invariably  accompanied  with  a 
chuckle,  as  if  the  very  association  of  the 
words  '' McKinley"  and  "business"  sug 
gested  a  comical  incongruity. 

"Why,"  said  one  prominent  banker  to 
your  correspondent,  "  he  is  as  ignorant  as 
a  child  when  it  comes  to  practical  affairs. 
The  Major's  a  very  clever  fellow,  you 
know  ;  1  have  voted  for  him  regularly, 
and  should  hate  to  do  him  any  harm  or 
say  anything  harsh  about  him.  But  I 
wouldn't  trust  his  business  judgment  to 
buy  and  sell  a  yellow  dog.  He  has  had 
to  be  helped,  and  coddled,  and  lifted  over 
the  hard  places  at  every  stage." 

"But  his  friends  represent  him  in  the 
East  as  the  great  missionary  apostle  from 
Ohio  to  the  business  world  outside." 

"  Every  Ohio  man  knows  better,  and 
the  managers  who  circulate  that  stuff  do 
him  a  wrong,  for  they  lead  the  American 
public  to  expect  so  much  more  of  him 
than  he  is  capable  of  performing.  They 
bill  him  like  a  circus,  and  the  people 
whose  imagination  is  excited  by  the  pic 
tures  on  the  fence  are  bound  to  be  awfully 
disappointed  when  they  get  inside  of  the 
tent.'* 

"  Is  he  not  considered  at  home  a  great 
business  orator  ?" 

The  banker  laughed.  "Oh,  no,"  said 
he,  "  we  all  know  just  what  he  amounts 
to.  He  is  a  stump  politician,  with  a  set 
of  stock  phrases,  like  a  fisherman  with  a 
ten-jointed  rod.  On  a  big  occasion  he 
pulls  out  all  the  joints  and  puts  them  to 
gether.  On  small  occasions  he  pulls  out 
one  of  the  joints  and  uses  that.  There 
is  only  one  business  subject  he  knows 
anything  about — the  tariff.  And  he 
doesn't  know  enough  about  that  to  hurt 
him." 

"  Was  his  failure  three  years  ago  the 
result  of  business  incompetency  ?" 

"  We  think  it  was  an  honest  failure — 
that  is,  he  didn't  'fail  rich,'  as  the  saying 
is.  There  have  been  reports  that  the 
money  obtained  by  the  loan  of  his  name 
to  Robert  L.  Walker  went  into  a  tin  mill 
at  Piqua,  and  for  McKinley's  benefit; 
but  no  one  who  knows  the  Major  believes 
that.  The  statement  has  been  made  also, 
by  parties  who  assert  that  they  have  seen 
the  paper  in  bank,  that  some  of  it  was 
not  made  by  Walker  and  endorsed  by  Mc 
Kinley,  but  bore  McKinley's  signature 
and  Walker's  endorsement  ;  and  an  effort 
has  been  made  to  turn  this  circumstance 
to  McKinley's  discredit.  But  even  sup 
posing  this  to  be  true,  it  does  not  of  itself 
prove  anything.  The  notes  signed  by  Mc 
Kinley,  if  there  were  such, may  have  been 
accommodation  paper,  and  the  proceeds 
used,  like  the  proceeds  of  the  endorsed 
notes,  for  Walker's  benefit  alone.  The 


fact  undoubtedly  is  that  Walker,  over 
whelmed  by  his  multitude  of  disappoint 
ing  investments,  made  free  use  of  the 
credit  which  his  friend  possessed  through 
being,  not  a  man  of  wealth  or  a  man  of 
business,  but  a  successful  political  figure 
head  whose  backers  could  not  afford  to 
see  him  go  entirely  under.  McKinley, 
on  his  part,  finding  the  bankswilling  to 
lend  money  on  his  name,  wrote  it  when 
ever  requested  to  do  so,  with  the  result 
that,  in  his  unbusiness-like  way,  he 
heaped  up  debts  of  which  he  did  not  even 
keep  any  track,  and  never  woke  up  to 
what  he  was  doing  till  everything  he  had 
was  gone,  and  a  great  deal  more.'' 

"  Did  not  his   wife's  fortune  make   up 
the  difference  ?" 

"I  don't  think  that  was  necessary.  Mrs. 
McKinley  did  what  any  loyal  woman 
would  wish  to  do  to  save  her  husband. 
But  his  creditors  did  not  want  that  sacri 
fice.  As  we  understand  it,  a  number  of 
rich  friends  with  a  stake  in  his  political 
future  got  together  and  raised  by  sub 
scription  enough  to  put  him  on  his  feet 
again,  and  more,  too,  and  spared  Mrs. 
McKinley  her  threatened  sacrifice.  Mr. 
Kohlsaat  of  Chicago,  whose  paper,  the 
Times-Herald,  has  since  become  the  great 
McKinley  organ,  is  reputed  to  have  been 
the  most  generous  contributor  to  the 
relief  fund,  and  Mr.  Hanna,  the  street- 
railway  magnate  of  Cleveland,  who  is 
the  chief  engineer  or  steersman  of  the 
Major's  presidential  boom,  is  said  to 
have  given  a  handsome  sum.  Other 
well-known  names  are  mentioned.  But 
the  full  list  of  contributors,  and  the 
amounts  they  severally  subscribed,  have 
never  been  published.  What  originally 
got  McKinley  into  this  trouble  was  a 
sense  of  obligation  he  felt  to  Mr.  Walker 
for  past  favors.  A  similar  sense  of 
indebtedness  he  must  now  feel  to  the 
little  group  of  party  associates  who  helped 
him  out  of  his  extremity.  His  only  hope 
of  repaying  them  rests  on  getting  into 
some  place  where  he  will  have  large 
political  favors  to  dispense." 

There  was  an  incident  connected  with 
the  McKinley  failure  to  which  the  speaker 
did  not  allude,  but  which  to  the  minds  of 
many  persons  at  the  time  infused  a  mild 
flavor  of  comedy  into  what  was  generally 
treated  as  a  tragic  episode.  In  a  pub 
lished  interview  at  Chicago  on  February 
21,  1893,  immediately  after  the  news  of 
the  crash  appeared  in  the  press,  Mr. 
Kohlsaat  said,  referring  to  a  conference 
tie  had  had  with  Major  McKinley: 

"The  Governor  will  retire  from  politics, 
since  he  cannot  hold  office  and  get  up 
again  financially.  He  said  he  would 
begin  his  law  practice  again,  and  make  it 
his  object  in  life  to  pay  all  he  had  been 
dragged  into  owing. 

"Will  the  Governor  resign?     Well,  it  is 


hardly  possible  to  see  what  else  he  can 
do.  It  will  be  quite  necessary,  since  he 
proposes  to  settle  dollar  for  dollar,  and 
there  is  no  money  in  being  Governor." 

At  that  moment  McKinley  was  in 
Cleveland.  Simultaneously  with  the 
giving  out  of  the  Kohlsaat  interview,  he 
was  approached  with  the  question  wheth 
er  the  report  was  true  that  he  should 
retire  from  the  governorship  and  go  to 
work,  and  he  answered  promptly: 
.  "You  may  state  that  I  will  not  resign 
my  office  and  return  to  the  practice  of  my 
profession." 

Mr.  Kohlsaat  never  attempted  to  ex 
plain  the  discrepancy  between  his  own 
judgment  of  what  was  the  right  thing  for 
a  politician  in  such  a  case  to  do,  and  the 
plans  of  the  politician  himself.  It  was 
an  ingenuous  impulse  which  led  him 
into  giving  an  honest  and  sensible 
business  opinion.  The  salary  of  the 
governorship  was  $8,000  a  year,  and  the 
load  of  debt  under  which  the  Governor 
was  staggering  was  more  than  a  dozen 
times  that  sum;  whereas  a  good  lawyer 
in  a  live  Ohio  city  ought  to  make  $20,000 
a  year. 

But  Cleveland  was  the  headquarters  of 
the  Hanna  machine  which  was  preparing 
to  push  McKinley  into  the  presidential 
chair.  The  question,  what  was  right, 
was  not  half  so  important  at  that  juncture 
as  the  question,  what  was  politically 
expedient.  To  retire  from  public  life 
and  become  a  plain  provincial  lawyer 
might  be  an  eminently  proper  thing  to 
do,  but  its  effect  would  be  to  drop  the 
flamboyant  candidate  back  into  his  native 
obscurity.  So  another  programme  was 
decided  on  at  Cleveland,  and  from  its 
authors  the  Major  took  his  cue.  Not  only 
did  he  cling  to  the  governorship  for  the 
term  he  was  then  filling,  but  the  summer 
of  that  year  found  him  again  on  the 
stump,  a  contestant  for  a  second  term. 
Popular  pity  for  his  misfortunes  was  a 
chord  whose  strings  his  machine-mana 
gers  knew  well  how  to  strike.  The  cam 
paign  was  an  eminent  success,  notwith 
standing  that  the  fruition  of  November 
presented  a  somewhat  sordid  contrast 
with  the  promise  of  February. 

Mr.  Kohlsaat  has  apparently  learned 
his  lesson,  and  no  prophetic  interviews 
have  since  been  given  out  by  him.  It  is 
the  machine  in  this  city  which  is  grinding 
out  all  the  authorized  talk  about  McKin 
ley  nowadays. 

III. 

Surrender  to  the  Street  Railroads — Convicts 
Left  in  Idleness. 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  13. 
How  poor  an  administrator  of  his  own 
business    affairs    Major     McKinley     has 


shown  himself  was  pointed  out  in  a  for 
mer  leuer.  He  has  made  an  equal  failure 
in  dealing  with  public  business.  The 
lour  years  of  his  administration  as  Gov 
ernor  were  four  years  of  financial  embar 
rassment  for  Ohio.  At  the  end  of  the 
first  two  years  the  State  Treasury  found 
itself  with  so  big  a  deficit  that  it  had  to 
borrow  $500,000  on  short-term  emergency 
certificates  as  the  only  alternative  of  con 
fessed  bankruptcy.  The  state  constitu 
tion  limits  ihe  borrowing  of  funds  for 
paying  running  expenses  to  $750,000. 
Gov.  McKinley's  second  term  of  two  years 
has  not  compelled  the  state  to  trench  upon 
the  remaining  $250,000  ;  but  every  friend 
of  the  retiring  Governor  heaved  a  deep 
sigh  of  relief  when  the  responsibility  of 
nursing  the  damaged  resources  of  the 
commonwealth  devolved  upon  his  suc 
cessor,  who  is  a  good  business  man  and 
has  already  secured  legislation  which  he  . 
believes  will  bring  the  revenues  abreast 
of  the  current  expenses.  Although,  as 
has  been  said,  Gov.  McKinley's  adminis 
tration  was  spared  the  necessity  of  rais 
ing  a  second  loan,  it  nevertheless  left  the 
Treasury  without  means  of  taking  up  its 
paper  at  maturity,  and  refunding  opera 
tions  are  now  in  progress  with  a  view  to 
staving  off  the  evil  day  for  two  years 
longer. 

Of  all  her  domestic  corporations  from 
which  Ohio  might  derive  a  handsome 
income  by  taxation,  the  street  railways 
in  her  thrifty  cities,  escape  with  the  light 
est  burdens.  At  the  two  ends  of  the  state 
are  Cleveland,  with  her  "  big  consoli 
dated"  and  "  little  consolidated"  systems 
of  trolley  and  cable  cars,  and  Cincinnati, 
with  her  notorious  monopoly  of  a  like 
sort.  The  "little  consolidated''  system 
of  Cleveland,  which  is  by  far  the  richer  of 
the  rivals  here,  and  will  doubtless  pre 
sently  absorb  the  other,  is  controlled  by 
"  Mark"  Hanna,  the  millionaire  boss  who 
is  running  McKinley  for  the  presidency  ; 
the  attorney  for  the  Cincinnati  monopoly, 
who  defends  it  from  assault  either  in  the 
courts  or  in  the  Legislature,  is  "Joe" 
Foraker,  the  factional  leader  on  whose 
loyalty  must  largely  hang  the  fate  of 
Ohio's  candidate  at  any  national  Repub 
lican  convention. 

An  Ohio  statute  known  as  the  "  Nichols 
Law"  provides  for  the  taxation  of  tele 
graph,  telephone  and  express  companies, 
on  the  basis  of  the  proportion  their  pro 
perty  in  Ohio  bears  to  their  property 
elsewhere.  When  Senator  Whittlesey, 
a  shrewd  and  experienced  farmer  mem- 
ber,sought  to  increase  the  state's  revenues 
by  introducing  in  the  Legislature  a  bill 
extending  the  Nichols  Law  so  as  to  cover 
freight  and  equipment  companies  and 
street  railways,  he  expected  the  cordial 
co-operation  of  Governor  McKinley  ;  for 
he  knew,  and  assumed  that  the  Governor 


knew,  the  dire  staits  through  which  the 
state's  finances  were  then  passing.  But 
the  Governor  never  lifted  a  hand. 
"Mark"  Hanna  and  "Joe"  Foraker, 
though  occasionally  crossing  swords  in 
factional  fights,  had  become  a  unit  as  soon 
as  the  street  railways  were  threatened  by 
a  tax  spectre,  and  poor  Whittlesey  could 
not  stand  up  against  such  a  combination. 
His  bill  disappeared  from  sight  for  a 
while,  anrt  when  it  emerged  to  make 
another  struggle  for  enactment  it  still 
carried  the  freight  and  equipment  com 
panies,  but  the  street  railways  had 
mysteriously  dropped  out ! 

Here  was  one  of  the  opportunities  of  a 
lifetime  missed  by  Gov.  McKinley.  Had 
he  taken  hold  of  Senator  Whittlesey's  bill, 
as  he  has  always  been  ready  to  take  hold 
of  any  means  for  advancing  his  own 
political  interests,  he  would  have  enabled 
the  state  to  make  good  its  deficit  and 
enjoy  a  surplus  besides,  and  would  have 
turned  over  to  his  successor  a  sound 
instead  of  a  crippled  treasury.  The 
charge  freely  made  by  the  Governor's 
critics  that,  inspired  by  Mr.  Hanna,  he 
had  actively  interested  himself  in  induc 
ing  Senator  W7hittlesey  to  strike  the 
street-railways  item  from  the  bill, 
does  not  call  for  consideration  here,  as  no 
definite  proofs  have  been  published.  In 
action  by  a  public  officer,  however,  at  a 
time  when  it  is  his  moral  duty  to  act,  is 
an  offence  often  too  serious  to  be  distin 
guished  from  positive  action  of  the  wrong 
sort. 

Another  opportunity  allowed  to  pass, 
whereby  the  state  -has  been  a  loser,  was 
that  of  employing  the  idle  convicts  in  the 
Ohio  penitentiary  on  public  construction 
work  which  is  badly  in  arrears  and  which 
is  costing  an  immense  sum  in  driblets. 
That  the  convicts  are  in  need  of  such 
employment  is  the  fault  of  the  labor 
unions,  who  are  powerful  politically  here 
as  elsewhere.  A  few  years  ago  they 
procured  the  enactment  of  a  law  forbid 
ding  the  state  to  lease  its  convict  labor  to 
contracting  manufacturers  to  an  extent 
in  excess  of  5  per  cent,  of  the  amount  of 
free  labor  employed  at  the  same  time  in 
the  same  trades  elsewhere  in  the  state. 
Of  course  such  a  restriction  has  killed  the 
profits  of  convict  contracts  both  for  the 
state  and  for  the  contractors.  One  man 
ufacturing  concern  after  another  has 
declined  to  renew  its  contracts  and 
dropped  out  of  the  prison  shops:  and 
to-day  as  a  consequence  about  half  the 
convict  population  of  the  state  peniten 
tiary  is  sitting  within  its  walls,  staring 
all  day  long  at  the  whitewashed  stones, 
with  no  occupation  for  minds  or  hands — 
a  pitiful  addition  to  the  horrors  of  being 
locked  up. 

At  least  three  of  the  public  institutions 
in  various  parts  of  the  state  were  in  pro- 


cess  of  building,  extension,  or  repair 
during  Gov.  McKinley's  administration. 
One  of  them,  the  Eastern  Ohio  Insane 
Hospital  at  Massillon,  has  been  five  years 
under  way;  another,  the  Epileptic  Hos 
pital  at  Gallipolis,  eight  or  nine  years. 
But  the  most  inexcusable  delay  of  all  has 
been  in  connection  with  the  intermediate 
penitentiary  or  reformatory  at  Mansfield, 
which  has  been  twelve  years  in  building, 
has  cost  $8,000,000  already,  and  is  no 
where  near  finished  yet.  Besides  out 
rageous  extravagance  from  a  pecuniary 
point  of  view,  this  involves  the  herding 
of  young  criminals,  first  offenders,  in 
places  morally  unsuitable,  so  that  there 
is  every  incentive  for  a  conscientious 
executive  to  push  the  building  to  comple 
tion  as  fast  as  possible.  It  was  suggested 
that  Gov.  McKinley  could  do  a  good  and 
wise  act  by  taking  the  unemployed  con 
victs  from  the  state  penitentiary  at 
Columbus  and  setting  them  at  work  on 
some  of  the  unfinished  buildings.  The 
best  place  seemed  to  be  Mansfield,  where 
it  was  proposed  to  instruct  the  managers 
of  the  building  operations  to  carry  for 
ward  one  wing  far  enough  to  make  a 
place  for  at  least  a  part  of  the  first  offend 
ers, and  then  complete  the  rest  by  degrees 
as  practicable.  This  would  have  been  a 
master  stroke  in  economy,  besides  sparing 
the  able-bodied  inmates  of  the  peniten 
tiary  the  misery  of  further  idleness;  and 
the  convict  labor  law  did  not  apply  to 
public  work.  But  the  Governor  paid  no 
heed.  Possibly  he  was  too  busy  with 
his  campaigning — for  the  universal  criti 
cism  of  his  conduct  during  his  four  years 
is  that  he  did  more  stumping  than  gov 
erning;  or  he  may  have  hesitated  to  give 
offence  to  the  labor  leaders,  who  would 
have  a  share  in  electing  party  delegates, 
and  who  are  intense  in  their  opposition 
to  all  profitable  employment  of  convicts 
— both  in  those  ways  prohibited  by  law, 
and  in  those  against  which  they  had  not 
yet  been  able  to  procure  legislation. 

Fatal  inaction  as  usual  carried  the  day. 
Four  of  the  twelve  expensive  years  of 
the  reformatory  at  Massillon  were  passed 
while  Gov.  McKinley  sat  in  the  chair  of 
state,  not  caring,  or  not  daring,  to  take 
the  one  course  which  had  everything  to 
recommend  it. 


IV. 

The   Governor  s  Offic'  as  a   Street  Railway 
Lobby  Centre. 
CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  14. 

Gov.  MCKINLEY'S  unfriendly  attitude 
toward  the  Whittlesey  bill  to  tax  the 
street-railway  companies  would  probably 
not  have  caused  so  widespread  a  suspicion 
of  his  motives,  but  for  another  incident  of 


his  administration  affecting  the  same  class 
of  corporations. 

The  legislative  session  of  1892  was 
made  memorable  by  the  dramatic  fiasco 
of  the  "  ninety-nine-year  bill."  The  mu 
nicipalities  of  Ohio  are  now  limited  by 
law  to  a  term  of  twenty-five  years  in 
granting  franchises  to  street  railways;  the 
street-railway  companies  have  been  for 
years  engaged  in  a  constant  struggle  to 
have  this  term  extended.  Commonly 
their  demand  has  been  for  fifty  years; 
but  in  1892,  with  Gov.  McKinley  just 
seated  in  the  executive  chair,  they  seem 
to  have  considered  the  time  ripe  for  a 
bolder  dash,  and  a  Senator  named  Spen 
cer  introduced  a  bill  which,  stripped  of 
its  technical  verbiage,  would  have  author 
ized  the  conferring  of  franchises  for 
ninety-nine  years,  without  any  compen 
sating  advantages  to  the  people  thus  tied 
hand  and  foot. 

So  quietly  did  the  machinery  work  that 
the  matter  would  probably  have  escaped 
public  notice  till  too  late  but  for  an  acci 
dent.  A  certain  newspaper  correspond 
ent  at  Columbus,  looking  through  a  heap 
of  bills  one  evening  in  search  of  a  topic 
for  a  letter,  was  struck  with  a  peculiar 
incidental  feature  of  this  one,  examined 
it  carefully,  and  exploited  his  discovery 
in  print  the  next  day.  At  once  the  whole 
state  was  aroused.  The  unfettered  news 
papers  in  the  cities,  and  the  press  of  the 
small  towns  and  villages  universally, 
began  pouring  hot  shot  into  the  bill. 
The  street-railway  lobby  responded  by 
swarming  about  the  capitol  like  bees  in  a 
sugar-cask.  The  bill  was  put  through 
the  form  of  amendment  in  committee, 
but  the  obnoxious  feature  was  still  there 
when  it  emerged  with  a  favorable  re 
port. 

The  crisis  came  on  the  evening  of 
April  7,  when  the  bill  was  reached  on  the 
Senate  calendar  and  put  on  its  passage  in 
that  house.  The  excitement  against  the 
bill  and  its  lobby  was  so  great  throughout 
the  state  that  several  of  the  Senators  who 
had  hopes  of  a  political  future  felt  under 
the  necessity  of  explaining  their  votes 
and  showing  their  constituencies  how 
they  had  become  "convinced"  of  the 
virtues  of  a  ninety-nine-year  franchise 
system.  But  not  one  of  these  men  had 
the  hardihood  to  claim  that  his  vote  had 
been  solicited  by  anybody  except  persons 
financially  interested  in,  or  retained  as 
attorneys  by,  the  corporations  involved. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  little  group  of 
Senators  who  had  not  been  won  over 
were  outspoken  in  their  denunciation  of 
the  methods  used  to  convert  their  col 
leagues.  Senator  McMaken,  for  instance, 
described  the  social  and  political  pressure 
which  had  been  brought  to  bear  in  the 
interest  of  the  bill,  and  said  that  nothing 
but  his  firm  conviction  that  it  went 


against  the  interests  of  the  people  he 
represented  would  have  enabled  him  to 
stand  up  against  such  powerful  influ 
ences.  Senator  Forbes  declared  that  for 
the  two  weeks  last  past  it  had  been 
almost  impossible  to  get  into  the  Senate 
chamber,  so  thickly  was  the  way  bl<  eked 
by  the  railway  lobby;  that  the  Senators 
had  been  individually  pulled,  hauled, 
and  "manipulated"  till  it  had  become 
tiresome  and  disgusting;  and  that  now 
the  Senate  was  called  upon  to  vote  for  a 
bill  for  the  passage  of  which  not  a  soul 
in  the  state  of  Ohio  had  asked  except 
street-railway  stockholders  and  similar 
interested  parties.  Senator  Parker  said 
that,  although  he  felt  sure  that  the  deci 
sion  of  the  Senate  had  already  been 
"fixed"  beyond  the  possibility  of  mis 
carriage,  he  considered  it  his  duty  to 
enter  his  protest  against  the  grievous 
wrong  which  seemed  imminent.  The 
people  of  Ohio  had  pursued  a  mistaken 
and  costly  policy  in  the  past  in  handling 
their  street  railways,  and  they  must  not 
go  further  in  the  same  course,  and  tie 
their  hands  for  almost  a  century,  without 
a  warning. 

All  these  speeches,  and  others,  were 
made  to  the  face  of  Mark  Hanna,  who  sat 
where  he  could  watch  every  Senator  in 
the  critical  hour.  Then,  at  the  proper 
moment,  when  the  Senators  of  the  major 
ity  who  were  too  much  ashamed  of  their 
votes  to  let  them  go  unexplained  had  had 
a  chance  to  put  themselves  on  record, 
and  before  the  pitiful  minority  could 
frighten  their  weak-kneed  brethren  with 
any  more  plain  talk,  Senator  Phillips 
sprang  the  "  previous  question,"  and  the 
bill  was  rushed  through,  19  to  8. 

The  newspapers  the  next  day  took  up 
the  plain  talk  where  the  "  previous  ques 
tion  "  had  cut  it  off,  and  their  charges 
remain  the  uncorrected  record  to  this 
day.  Said  one  :  "It  has  leaked  out  that 
there  was  a  secret  conference  of  Senators 
interested  in  the  passage  of  the  ninety- 
nine-year  bill  held  in  the  Governor's  office 
last  night.  Among  those  present  were  : 
Bane,  Eckley,  Lampson,  Abbott,  Phillips 
and  Nichols.  It  is  a  little  hard  to  under 
stand  just  why  these  gentlemen,  neither 
of  whom  has  a  city  of  any  size  in  his  dis 
trict,  should  take  such  deep  interest  in 
securing  the  passage  of  this  infamous 
measure,  which  seeks  to  deed  to  wealthy 
corporations  for  ninety-nine  years  the 
prominent  streets  in  all  the  towns  and 
cities  of  the  state.  Of  course  it  was  im 
possible  to  ascertain  what  was  done  at 
this  conference,  but  the  fact  that  it  fol 
lowed  immediately  after  the  appearance 
here  of  one  Mark  A.  Hanna  is  sufficient 
to  create  suspicion  in  the  minds  of  a  great 
many  people  who  understand  the  influ 
ences  that  usually  secure  the  passage  of 
job  laws  through  the  General  Assembly. 


"There  is  a  suspicion  that  Gov.  Mc- 
Kinley  has  aided  in  securing  the  passage 
of  the  robber  b'll.  At  any  rate,  Mark 
Hanna  made  his  headquarters  in  the  exe 
cutive  office  and  sent  for  the  Senators  to 
appear  in  his  presence.  By  ones  and 
by  twos  they  trotted  down  to  see  the  Re 
publican  boss.  Yesterday  at  noon  two 
Senators  who  opposed  the  bill  were  in  the 
Governor's  office  for  an  hour  or  more, 
where  the  street-railroad  magnate  labored 
with  them,  but  he  was  unable  to  get  them 
into  line.  However,  a  sufficient  numb1  r 
were  seen  to  pass  the  bill,  and  to-night 
the  House  membership  is  being  checked 
off  to  ascertain  if  it  is  possible  to  railroad 
the  job  through  that  body." 

The  scandal  which  followed  the  Senate's 
share  in  this  job,  and  the  ugly  things 
which  were  said  of  a  Governor  who 
would  permit  his  office  to  be  made  a 
lobby  headquarters,  even  to  oblige  an 
old  friend  and  heavy  political  creditor, 
killed  the  ninety-nine-year  bill  in  the 
House.  Not  enough  Representatives 
could  be  found  willing  to  face  the  charge 
of  selling  out  to  the  street-railway  com 
panies  to  make  its  passage  possible,  and 
it  was  therefore  discreetly  smothered. 
But  the  scent  of  the  whole  business  clung 
about  the  Governor's  office  and  refused  to 
be  aired  away  during  the  rest  of  the  four 
years  of  the  McKinley  regime.  It  is  for 
that  reason  that  so  many  worthy  citizens 
of  Ohio  refuse  to  believe  that  Gov  McKin 
ley  did  not  with  his  own  hand  strike  the 
blow  which  cut  the  street  railways  so  mys 
teriously  out  of  the  Whittlesey  tax  bill. 


V. 

The  Hocking  Canal  Job  and  Its  Closing 

Scandal. 
CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  15. 

The  unexplained  collapse  of  the  Whit 
tlesey  tax  bill,  and  the  failure  to  make 
use  of  idle  convicts  in  finishing  some  of 
Ohio's  public  buildings,  have  been  cited 
as  single  instances  among  many,  illustra 
tive  of  Gov.  McKinley's  utter  lack  of 
grasp  when  opportunities  to  benefit  his 
state  and  distinguish  his  own  administia- 
tion  were  within  easy  reach  of  his  hand; 
and  the  story  of  the  "  ninety-nine  year 
bill,"  with  its  inglorious  reflections  upon 
the  Governor,  upon  his  bosom  friend  and 
backer  Mr.  Hanna,  and  upon  the  nine 
teen  "  convinced"  Senators,  has  been 
told  to  illustrate  the  dramatic  turn  some 
times  given  to  Gov.  McKinley's  blunders 
of  incapacity  and  indiscretion  if  nothing 
worse.  But  the  Hocking  Canal  case 
combines  the  elements  of  the  other  cases 
to  effectively  that  no  record  of  the  Mc 
Kinley  quadrennium  could  afford  to  pass 
it  by. 


A  section  of  the  Hocking  Canal  lying 
chiefly  in,  or  tributary  to  Athens  County, 
Ohio,  was  found  some  years  ago  to  be 
an  unprofitable  piece  of  property  for  the 
state  to  carry  longer.  Its  usefulness  as  a 
commercial  waterway  had  fallen  off  and 
it  was  chiefly  valuable  as  a  menace  to  the 
Columbus,  Hocking  Valley  and  Toledo 
Railroad  Company  in  case  the  latter  should 
exact  inordinate  freight  rates  or  try  other 
tricks  which  could  be  countered  by  timely 
competition  on  the  part  of  the  state  gov 
ernment.  In  view  of  all  the  conditions, 
the  sentiment  of  the  business  community 
throughout  the  state  was  strongly  in  favor 
of  abandoning  the  section  and  leasing  it 
at  a  good  rental,  so  as  to  make  it  a  steady 
source  of  revenue  instead  of  a  drain  upon 
the  Treasury. 

Taking  advantage  of  this  popular  feel 
ing,  certain  thrifty  gentlemen  organized 
a  company  ostensibly  for  the  purpose  of 
building  a  railroad  embracing  the  route 
of  the  abandoned  canal  section,  to  be 
known  as  the  Columbus,  Hocking  Valley 
and  Athens.  It  was  a  "  paper"  scheme 
at  the  outset.  It  still  remains  a  "  paper" 
scheme.  The  indications  are  that  its 
projectors  never  intended  it  to  be  any 
thing  else.  As  the  new  road,  if  built, 
would  parallel  the  Columbus,  Hocking 
Valley  and  Toledo  for  most  of  the  way, 
it  was  to  be  presumed  that  the  Columbus, 
Hocking  Valley  and  Toledo  Company 
might  wish  to  buy  out  the  Columbus, 
Hocking  Valley  and  Athens  Company  by 
giving  it  a  handsome  bonus  on  any  bar 
gain  it  might  drive  with  the  state.  Indeed, 
there  were  many  ways  in  which  even  a 
"paper"  railroad  with  a  valuable  fran 
chise  in  the  Hocking  Valley  might  come 
in  handy. 

At  a  low  valuation,  the  lease  of  the 
abandoned  canal  would  be  worth,  for 
legitimate  railroad  purposes,  not  less 
than  $30,000  a  year;  for  the  tow  path  was 
wide  enough  for  at  least  one  pair  of 
tracks,  and  the  dry  canal  bed  would  afford 
space  for  more,  and  both  were  so  level 
and  so  solid  that  the  original  work  of 
grading  and  ballasting  would  be  reduced 
to  a  minimum,  and  the  cost  of  keeping  in 
repair  would  be  too  insignificant  to  count. 

But  the  new  company  was  no  prodigal. 
Resides  being  short  of  funds,  it  believed 
in  getting  the  largest  possible  value  at 
the  lowest  possible  price.  It  accordingly 
procured  the  introduction  in  the  Senate, 
two  years  ago,  of  a  bill  authorizing  the 
lease  of  the  abandoned  canal  to  itself  at 
an  annual  rental  of  $6,000  a  year.  It  did 
not  expect  much  opposition  in  the  Senate, 
and  its  sense  of  security  there  was  well 
founded  ;  but  the  House,  being  closer  to 
the  masses  of  the  people,  was  liable  to 
make  more  trouble,  and  to  forestall  this 
contingency  the  company  procured  the 
energetic  championship  of  Representative 


Sleeper,  an  active  politician  from  Athens 
County,  who  kept  his  friendly  eye  on  the 
leasing  bill  while  it  was  in  the  Senate, and 
took  personal  command  of  its  campaign 
when  it  reached  the  House.  Mr.  Sleeper 
assured  everybody  that  he  was  not  finan 
cially  interested  in  the  new  railroad 
project ;  that  his  sole  purpose  in  pushing 
it  was  to  help  build  up  an  effective  com 
petitor  with  the  old  road  and  to  furnish 
an  outlet  for  some  coal  properties  near 
his  home  which  were  still  almost  undevel 
oped.  As  the  gentleman  turned  up,  how 
ever,  after  the  close  of  his  legislative 
struggle,  as  general  attorney  for  the  new 
company,  it  is  fair  to  suspect  that  he 
spoke  with  some  mental  reservations. 

The  newspapers  set  up  a  loud  outcry 
at  the  insignificance  of  the  rental  offered 
as  compared  with  the  real  value  of  the 
franchise,  and  demanded  either  that  the 
rental  named  in  the  bill  be  multiplied  by 
five  at  least,  or  that  the  bill  provide  for 
putting  the  franchise  up  at  auction  with  a 
stiff  upset  price,  and  disposing  of  it  to  the 
highest  bidder  above  that.  On  all  hands 
the  people  interested  in  the  state's  wel 
fare  looked  to  Gov.  McKinley  to  inter 
fere  in  its  behalf.  "One  blast  upon  his 
bugle  horn  "  would  have  called  into  be 
ing  a  majority  in  either  chamber  of  the 
Legislature.  But  once  more  he  was  a 
victim  of  administrative  paralysis  :  his 
tongue  was  tied  and  his  eyes  were  fixed. 
For  lack  of  his  support,  the  opponents  of 
the  job  failed  in  their  uphill  fight.  The 
most  they  could  accomplish  was  to  in 
crease  the  rental  to $10,000,  with  the  stipu 
lation  that  the  rent  for  five  years,  or 
$50,000,  should  be  paid  in  one  lump  and 
within  sixty  days,  and  that  the  railroad 
should  be  finished  within  two  years. 

On  the  night  of  the  I7th  of  May,  1894, 
the  bill,  which  had  reached  its  final  stage, 
was  called  up  for  passage  in  the  House, 
and  its  foes  were  put  to  their  trumps. 
They  first  procured  from  committee  a  re 
port  in  favor  of  a  substitute  bill  throwing 
the  franchise  open  to  competitive  bids, 
each  bidder  to  enclose  a  certified  check 
for  $1,000  as  a  guarantee  of  good  faith, 
and  the  successful  bidder  to  execute  a 
bond  in  $100,000  for  specific  performance 
of  contract ;  that  was  voted  down.  Then 
an  offer  war,  presented  to  the  House  from 
the  Chicago,  Columbus  and  Southern 
Railway  Company,  another  new  corpora 
tion  controlled  by  responsible  capitalists, 
of  $15,000  annual  rental,  with  $75,000 
down  ;  that  was  rejected  also.  By  this 
time  the  blood  of  both  factions  had  grown 
hot,  and  a  dramatic  scene  followed. 
Charges  and  recriminations  flew  Irom 
side  to  side  like  the  phrases  of  an  anti- 
phonal  chorus.  The  climax  was  reached 
when  one  member  arose  and  declared 
that  there  sat  in  the  chamber  at  that  mo 
ment  a  man  who  had  called  him  over  to  a 


26 


sofa  on  one  side  and  had  offered  him 
$5,000  in  cash,  ''and  all  expenses  paid," 
to  change  his  vote.  A  roar  of  mingled 
anger,  surprise,  and  disparagement  rose 
from  all  quarters.  In  the  midst  of  the 
hubbub  the  accusing  member  held  his 
place  undaunted,  and  as  soon  as  he  could 
command  another  hearing  he  stretched 
out  his  finger  and  pointed  to  a  notorious 
lobbyist  who  had  sneaked  inside  of  th.e 
rail  and  was  sitting  beside  another  mem 
ber  and  coaching  him  for  the  debate,  and 
cried  out  ; 

4i  And  there  he  sits,  Mr.  Speaker.  I 
move  his  expulsion  from  this  chamber  !  " 

The  uproar  broke  out  afresh.  The 
Speaker's  gavel,  pound  as  he  would, 
could  no  more  be  heard  than  a  tap  on  the 
window  pane.  There  was  no  chance  to 
put  the  motion,  however  ;  for  before 
order  could  be  restored  the  lobbyist, under 
protection  of  the  Sergeant-at-Arms,  had 
hurriedly  slipped  through  the  yelling 
crowd  and  sought  refuge  in  the  corridor. 

It  has  been  confidently  asserted  by 
those  who  are  most  conversant  with  the 
state  annals  that  a  scene  at  once  so  excit 
ing  and  so  disgraceful  has  never  been 
witnessed  in  the  Legislature  of  Ohio  be 
fore  or  since  that  night. 

But  to  the  sequel.  The  Columbus, 
Hocking  Valley  and  Athens  Company  did 
manage  to  raise  the  necessary  money  to 
pay  its  first  installment,  and  later  it 
bought  some  scrapers  and  other  imple 
ments  and  turned  up  some  earth.  In  that 
condition  the  job  stands  to-day.  The  two 
years'  limit  for  completion  of  the  work 
will  expire  in  about  one  month.  There  is 
no  new  railroad.  There  is  no  "  effective 
competition"  with  the  old  road.  There 
is  no  development  of  new  coal  resources. 
All  the  state  has  to  show  for  her  bargain, 
and  for  the  shame  that  was  fastened 
upon  her  in  its  consummation's  $50,000 
and  a  crop  of  annoying  litigation  !  If  she 
had  accepted  the  better  offer  made  her 
on  the  spot,  she  would  have  had  $75,000  any. 
way,  even  if  the  litigation  had  come  with  it. 

And  what  has  Gov.  McKinley  to  show 
for  his  lack  of  capacity,  or  disposition,  or 
nerve  to  grasp  this  scandal  and  wipe  it 
out  of  the  four  years'  history  of  his 
governorship? 

The  loudest  shouter  for  "  McKinley  for 
President"  in  the  whole  state  of  Ohio  is 
a  former  Foraker  man,  Mr.  Sleeper  of 
Athens  County. 

VI. 

The  Eggleston  A  venue  Canal-Bed  Job,  Now 
Under  Investigation. 

CINCINNATI,  O..  April  16. 
MOST  of  the   blunders  which  make  up 
the  four    years'  period    of  inaction    mis 
called  the  "administration"  of  Gov.  Mc 


Kinley  are  traceable  to  his  negative 
character.  Having  been  in  the  habit  for 
years  of  letting  stronger  men  manage 
him,  he  naturally  did  not  attempt  to 
interfere  when  they  proposed  to  manage 
the  state  of  Ohio  as  well.  His  thirst  for 
the  presidency,  too.  has  cost  him  all  the 
self-confidence  and  independence  of  spirit 
which  he  might  have  cultivated  but  for 
this.  Behind  every  tree  he  has  seen  an 
enemy  v:hom  he  must  placate;  in  every 
friendly  advance  he  has  seen  an  oppor 
tunity  to  tie  one  more  man  to  him,  which 
must  not  be  jeoparded  by  haggling  over 
favors  that  count  for  much  to  him  who 
•asks  and  cost  the  giver  nothing. 

One  of  these  favors  was  asked  some 
months  ago,  and  a  legislative  committee 
is  now  engaged  in  an  investigation  to 
find  out  whether  it  was  granted  or  not, 
for,  if  it  was,  it  may  have  cost  the  grantor 
nothing,  but  the  state  of  Ohio  seems  to 
have  lost  the  annual  interest  on  $200,000 
somewhere  in  the  operation. 

In  1892,  somebody  with  a  gift  for  por 
ing  over  old  records  called  the  attention 
of  the  Ohio  Legislature,  to  the  fact  that  a 
branch  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railway 
Company  was  occupying  with  its  tracks 
and  buildings  a  part  of  Eggleston  avenue 
in  Cincinnati.  This  street  was  on  the 
site  of  an  abandoned  section  of  the  Miami 
and  Erie  Canal,  and  the  state  had  granted 
it  to  the  city  for  highway  and  sewerage 
purposes  only;  the  railway  company, 
however,  had  taken  possession  under  an 
easement  granted  to  it  by  the  city,  but 
without  obtaining  the  state's  consent. 
An  inquiry  was  set  on  foot,  the  facts 
were  obviously  as  stated,  and  the  At 
torney-General  was  accordingly  directed 
to  bring  an  action  in  quo  warranto  for 
the  purpose  of  either  ousting  the  railway 
company  or  compelling  it  to  purchase  the 
consent  of  the  state  to  the  existing  diver 
sion  from  the  terms  of  the  grant  from 
state  to  city.  Ex-Gov.  Foraker  and  D.  K. 
Watson,  now  a  member  of  Congress, 
were  retained  as  special  counsel,  and  the 
Supreme  Court  decided  the  case  in  favor 
of  the  state,  giving  the  railroad  company 
120  days  in  which  to  procure  a  lease 
from  the  state  authorities. 

The  law  of  Ohio  provides  that  a  so- 
called  joint  board,  consisting  of  the  canal 
commission,  the  board  of  public  works, 
and  the  chief  engineer  of  the  last-named 
body,  shall  execute  such  leases  as  this, 
using  as  a  basis  the  valuation  assessed 
by  the  canal  commission,  and  charging 
the  lessee  an  annual  rental  of  six  per  cent, 
on  such  valuation.  The  canal  commis 
sion  set  upon  the  street  where  the  rail 
road  company  had  its  tracks  and  build 
ings  a  value  of  $357,000.  The  company, 
which  was  doing  a  business  of  perhaps 
$40,000  a  year  by  the  use  of  this  bit  of 
highway,  and  would  have  been  driven  to 


27 


its  wits'  end  to  know  where  else  to  settle 
down  if  compelled  to  remove  thence, 
nevertheless  made  a  spirited  "  bluff,'' 
and  declared  that  it  would  tear  up  its 
tracks  and  go  before  it  would  submit  to 
the  imposition  of  such  a  rental.  This  bit 
of  theatricals  was  a  matter  of  course,  and 
all  who  know  the  ways  of  railroad  com 
panies  expected  it.  Imagine  the  aston 
ishment,  therefore,  with  which,  just 
before  the  expiration  of  the  120  days, 
the  public  suddenly  heard  the  announce 
ment  that  the  canal  board's  valuation 
had  been  cut  down  $200,000  at  a  single 
stroke,  and  that  the  railroad  company  had 
condescended  to  accept  a  lease  on  a  re 
vised  valuation  of  only  $157,000. 

Astonishment  soon  gave  way  to  indig 
nation,  for  the  state  of  Ohio,  as  has  been 
shown,  is  not  so  rich  that  it  can  afford  to 
throw  six  per  cent,  annual  interest  on 
$200,000  into  the  gutter;  and  indignation 
stirred  up  curiosity  to  discover  how  the 
thing  was  done.  According  to  Frank  J. 
McCullach,  president  of  the  board  of 
public  works,  the  person  responsible  for 
the  change  was  the  Attorney-General  of 
the  state,  J.  K.  Richards,  who  was  ex- 
officio  the  legal  adviser  of  the  joint  board. 
There  was  only  one  member  of  the  joint 
board  who  had  the  backbone  to  stand  out 
and  stick  to  the  original  valuation  of 
$357,000.  He  was  a  member  of  the  canal 
commission,  named  R.  M.  Rownd.  Mr. 
McCullach  says  that  he  would  not  on 
any  account  have  voted  for  the  lease  but 
for  Mr.  Richards's  advice,  and,  knowing 
what  he  knows  now,  he  would  not  vote 
so  again. 

Turning  to  the  Attorney-General's  lat 
est  annual  report  to  see  what  explanation 
he  offers  for  the  change,  we  find  no 
record  of  any.  He  gives  a  very  circum 
stantial  account  of  the  proceedings  before 
the  courts,  and  a  superficial  statement  of 
the  conflicting  claims  of  the  railway  com 
pany  and  the  joint  board  as  to  the  terms 
of  the  lease;  but  his  record  may  be 
searched  in  vain  for  any  reference  to  the 
$357, °°°  valuation  and  the  mysterious 
disappearance  of  $200,000  of  it  in  a  night. 

Is  he  ashamed  of  his  share  in  the  busi 
ness?  Does  he  think  now,  looking  back 
upon  it  in  cool  blood,  that  he  was  weak 
in  allowing  the  railroad  to  bluff  the  state 
out  of  more  than  half  its  annual  income 
from  the  abandoned  canal  ? 

Or  is  he  simply  shielding  another  and 
higher  functionary  whose  orders  he  was 
bound  to  respect?  For  the  legislative 
investigators  have  only  got  to  go  deep 
enough  to  find: 

(i.)  That  a  letter  was  received  by  Gov. 
McKinley  from  J.  Twing  Brooks,  the 
Second  Vice  President  of  the  railway 
company,  asking  him  if  he  would  use  his 
good  offices  to  bring  about  the  desired 
adjustment  of  the  company's  rental. 


(2.)  That  after  the  receipt  of  this  letter 
Gov.  McKinley  was  seen  to  go  into  the 
Canal  Commission's  room,  for  an  inter 
view  the  nature  of  which  either  the 
Commissioners  or  the  Governor  would 
doubtless  be  willing  to  disclose,  if  it 
involved  nothing  questionable. 

(3.)  That  thereafter  the  Attorney-Gen 
eral — who  was  both  personally  and  offi 
cially  as  "close  to"  the  Governor  as  any 
man  in  the  public  service — gave  his  fatal 
advice,  on  the  stre.ngth  of  which  the 
valuation  suddenly  dropped  from  $357,000 
to  $157,000. 

These  are  facts  which  are  known. 
There  are  several  good  people  who  can 
tell  the  investigators  where  to  look  for 
the  original  letter  to  the  executive  of  an 
impoverished  state  from  an  executive  of 
a  railroad  corporation  then  trying  to 
drive  a  hard  bargain  with  that  state;  but 
possibly  the  copy  read  by  Mr.  Brooks  to 
the  legislative  investigating  committee 
will  answer  just  as  well. 

Judges  of  the  nice  proprieties  of  public 
life  will  form  their  own  opinion  of  the 
personal  or  official  relations  which  would 
justify  such  a  letter,  and  of  the  interplay 
of  cause  and  effect  in  the  incidents  which 
followed  its  receipt.  For  Gov.  McKinley's 
letter  to  Mr.  Brooks,  in  response  to  the 
one  asking  for  his  intervention,  said  that 
the  matter  had  been  placed  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  the  Attorney  General,  and 
that  the  Canal  Commission  would 
undoubtedly  act  in  accordance  with  his 
advice! 

The  greatest  interest  is  felt  throughout 
thf  state  in  the  forthcoming  report  of  the 
investigation.  The  Democrats,  with  a 
lively  recollection  of  the  Blaine  campaign, 
are  already  stowing  away  choice  morsels 
of  the  evidence  for  use  as  material  on  the 
stump  next  fall. 


VII. 

How  McKinley    Workers  are  Paid  from 
the  State   Treasury. 

COLUMBUS,  O.,  April  17. 
IF  the  four  years  of  Gov.  McKinley's 
so-called  "administration  "  in  Ohio  show 
a  record  of  feebleness,  neglect,  and  sub 
servience  to  rings  and  lobbies  in  connec 
tion  with  the  state's  financiering,  they 
are  positively  disreputable  in  another 
light;  for  the  Governor  proved  himself 
not  only  nerveless  and  ineffective  in 
dealing  with  any  important  pubh:  ques 
tion,  but  unable  to  choose  men  for  ap 
pointment  who  could  keep  clear  of  scan 
dals.  If  he  had  left  in  their  places  all 
the  executive  officers  who  were  already 
in  the  service  when  he  took  his  chair,  or 
if  he  had,  in  making  changes,  sought 
only  those  whose  approved  service  under 
former  governors  had  given  them  a  title 


to  his  consideration,  he  could  have 
steered  clear  of  many  of  the  perils  which 
beset  his  course,  and  gone  out  of  the 
governorship  with  a  record  fit  for  a  can 
didate  for  the  presidency.  But  instead 
of  that  he  h-ul  a  general  clearing-out,  re 
organizing  offices  and  staffs  and  boards 
and  commissions  till  he  had  "  McKinley- 
ized"  practically  the  whole  state  govern 
ment,  with  results  which  proved  his  in 
capacity  for  exercising  the  power  of  ap 
pointment  and  removal. 

Indeed,  the  first  cases  which  occur  to 
mind  are  those  of  one  new  appointee  and 
one  hold-over.  The  new  appointee  was 
the  governor's  personal  choice  for  a  high 
place  on  his  military  staff ;  he  retired 
after  the  newspapers  had  associated  his 
name  with  a  domestic  scandal  of  which 
the  details  would  not  edify  the  refined 
readers  of  the  Evening  Post,  and  which  it 
would  be  better  to  dismiss  with  this  brief 
reference.  The  hold-over — almost,  if  not 
quite,  the  only  person  in  a  highly  respon 
sible  office  whom  McKinley  saw  fit  to 
keep  in  his  place — was  W.  Z.  McDonald, 
chief  inspector  ot  workshops  and  fac 
tories.  It  is  the  duty  of  this  functionary 
to  inspect  all  buildings  in  which  large 
numbers  of  persons  are  housed,  and  pass 
upon  their  safety  and  the  sufficiency  of 
their  sanitary  equipment.  As  an  officer, 
McDonald  made  himself  unpopular  by 
his  zeal  in  insisting  on  supplying  all 
sorts  of  buildings  with  fire-escapes.  He 
marred  the  architecture  of  many  preten 
tious  hotels,  and  added  considerably  to 
the  expense  of  various  manufacturing 
plants  by  this  means,  and  the  proprietors 
whose  pockets  felt  the  pinch  reviled  him 
as  a  "  fire  escape  fiend,"  and  threw  out 
broad  hints  that  he  received  a  commis 
sion  from  dealers  in  safety  appliances. 
In  view  of  the  excellence  of  the  end 
gained,  however,  no  attention  was  paid 
to  this  grumbling.  But  one  fine  day  the 
capital  city  was  startled  by  the  story  that 
McDonald  had  been  drawing  money  from 
the  state  treasury  on  fraudulent  warrants, 
and  the  accused  officer  was  arrested  and 
brought  to  trial. 

It  was  a  queerly-mixed  lot  of  evidence 
which  was  brought  out  for  both  prosecu 
tion  and  defence;  so  much  so  that  the 
jury  disagreed  and  no  further  proceed 
ings  were  taken,  McDonald  having  made 
good  some  $4,000,  responsibility  for 
which  seemed  to  have  been  fixed  upon 
him.  It  appeared  that  he  had  eleven 
deputies  serving  under  him,  who  divided 
their  time  between  official  and  political 
work.  They  had  been  active,  as  he  had 
been  also,  in  helping  to  elect  Gov.  Mc 
Kinley  and  other  Republican  candidates 
to  office.  Money  was  needed  to  keep  the 
machine  running,  and  these  fellows  con 
tributed  with  the  rest.  For  their  ex 
penses  they  were  expected  to  make  a 


regular  accounting  to  their  chief,  who  in 
turn  would  draw  the  money  from  the 
state  treasury.  Between  accepting  oral 
statements  of  the  expenses  of  his  sub 
ordinates,  instead  of  vouchers,  and  keep 
ing  run  in  his  head  of  the  amounts  he 
advanced  to  them  for  the  payment  of  the 
political  assessments,  McDonald's  ac 
counts  became  a  hopeless  tangle,  and 
all  attempts  to  straighten  them  before  a 
jury  made  the  political  scandals  of  his 
administration  thicker.  At  the  same  time 
it  became  plain  to  all  who  followed  the 
testimony  that  his  own  bank  account  did 
not  profit  by  his  irregularities,  but  that 
he  was  the  victim  of  a  rotten  sort  of 
partisanship  which  permeated  the  higher 
politics  of  Ohio — a  convenient  scapegoat 
on  whom  bigger  men  could  heap  their 
own  responsibilities.  It  was  sympathy 
for  his  situation  as  a  vicarious  martyr 
which  undoubtedly  had  most  to  do  with 
the  disagreement  of  the  jury,  and  it  was 
the  dread  of  raking  over  more  adminis 
tration  scandals  which  prompted  the  dis 
missal  of  the  case  after  one  mistrial. 

How  did  Gov.  McKinley  act  in  the  pre 
mises  ?  Did  he,  as  soon  as  it  became  clear 
that  McDonald  had  got  into  trouble  by 
over-zeal  in  working  for  his  election,  call 
off  the  prosecution  ?  'Or  did  he  demand 
of  McDonald  his  immediate  retirement 
from  an  office  which  he  had  abused  ? 

Neither,  so  far  as  is  known.  But  he 
had  an  interview  with  McDonald  at  the 
capitol,  which  McDonald  began  to  describe 
on  the  witness-stand. 

"  Did  the  Governor  say  to  you,  '  I  want 
your  resignation  right  away1?"  asked  the 
attorney  who  was  drawing  the  story  out. 

*'  No,  sir  ;  he  said  nothing  of  the  sort," 
answered  the  witness. 

The  audience  strained  their  ears  for  the 
revelation  which  was  coming — but  it 
never  came.  Counsel  on  both  sides 
suddenly  reached  the  conclusion  not  to 
probe  any  further,  and  the  record  of 
McDonald's  interview  with  the  Governor 
remains  unwritten  to' this  dav. 

That  McDonald  did  not  suffer  in  his 
personal  reputation  by  the  disclosures 
made  in  court  and  by  his  admitted  short 
age,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  he  is  to 
day  employed  as  a  responsible  "travelling 
man"  at  good  pay.  The  chief  sufferer  by 
the  whole  business  was  the  Governor 
himself ;  for  the  inquiry  was  at  once 
raised  :  If  the  Governor  knew  nothing  of 
what  this  man  had  been  doing,  why  did 
he  single  him  out  as  an  exception  to  the 
''  clean  sweep"  made  of  the  other  state 
officers?  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  the 
Governor  knew  of  his  proceedings  before 
they  were  made  generally  public,  why 
did  he  not  remove  him  at  once?  And  in 
any  event,  why  was  not  the  McDonald- 
McKinley  interview  described  in  its 
entirety  in  court,  when  the  good  name  of 


the  administration  had  so  much  at  stake? 
Another  investigation  which  has  re 
cently  been  made  discloses  the  fact  that 
"Joe"  Smith,  Gov.  McKinley's  State 
Librarian,  instead  of  staying  in  Columbus 
and  managing  the  library — the  duty  for 
which  he  draws  his  salary — has  been 
spending  his  time  in  Cleveland,  helping 
"  Mark"  Hanna  engineer  the  McKinley 
campaign.  When  these  disclosures  came 
out,  they  simply  reduced  to  a  formal 
record  a  matter  which  was  already  known 
to  all  Ohio,  and  a  subject  of  general  com 
ment.  The  disclosure  evoked  no  expres 
sion  of  public  indignation,  but  merely 
laughter.  Such  things  had  become  so 
common  under  the  McKinley  regime  that 
they  had  passed  the  stage  where  they 
exited  any  feeling  except  amusement. 

'•  Bill"  Hahn  is  another  excellent  speci 
men  of  the  McKinley  lieutenant  who 
draws  his  sustenance  from  the  State 
Treasury.  Hahn  was  formerly  a  mem 
ber  of  the  Board  of  Public  Works,  and, 
while  he  was  still  under  fire  on  account  of 
sundry  grants  of  canal  lands  made  to 
railroad  companies  during  his  member 
ship  of  the  board.  Gov.  McKinley  put 
him  at  the  head  of  the  State  Insurance 
Department.  This  appointment  was  re 
garded  as  significant  that  McKinley 
needed  some  active  political  work  outside 
of  his  own  state,  for  the  duties  of  the  office 
would  call  Hahn  elsewhere  to  examine 
the  affairs  of  foreign  insurance  companies 
doing  a  branch  business  in  Ohio.  Sure 
enough,  it  was  of  one  of  these  "official" 
excursions  to  New  York  city,  that  an 
Ohio  journalist  wrote  from  there  to  his 
home  paper  in  September  of  last  year: 

"  Mr.  Hahn's  labors  have  not  been  con 
fined  to  talking  McKinley.  He  has  also 
been  working  the  press  and  has  managed 
to  get  a  good  deal  of  the  right  kind  of 
stuff  for  McKinley  into  print  here.  In  all 
this  he  is  understood  to  be  carrying  out 
his  part  of  a  regular  organized  effort  to 
boom  the  Ohio  Governor,  and  obtain  for 
him  the  nomination  so  much  desired  by 
him  and  his  friends.  This  scheme  .  . 
is  one  which  has  been  tried  before  many 
a  time,  but  never  with  great  results.  It 
is  a  simultaneous  booming  of  McKinley 
in  all  parts  of  the  country,  with  a  claim 
ing  of  strength  that  it  is  supposed  will 
drive  all  other  prospective  candidates  to 
cover." 

It  is  plain  that  Mr.  Hahn  knew  what 
Gov.  McKinley  had  appointed  him  for. 


VIII. 

Demoralization  in    the    Conduct   of  Lunatic 
Asylums  and  Penitentiaries. 

COLUMBUS,  O.,  April  18. 
THE  history  of  penal  and  charitable  in 
stitutions  of  Ohio  during  McKinley's  gov 


ernorship  is  a  long  story  of  scandals  and 
investigations.  It  is  useless  to  say  that 
the  Governor  was  not  himself  in  charge 
of  all  these  institutions.  The  point  is  that 
he  reorganized  their  management;  and 
his  mind  was  evidently  set  so  much  more 
upon  making  his  appointments  tributary 
to  his  presidential  aspirations  than  upon 
doing  well  the  duty  right  at  hand,  that  he 
appointed  trustees  and  managers  who 
were  unfit  for  their  places,  if  general  de 
moralization  is  any  sign. 

At  the  Dayton  State  Hospital  for  the 
Insane,  for  instance,  an  inmate  named 
George  Smith  died  mysteriously,  and  was 
hastily  buried.  Some  of  his  friends  were 
not  satisfied,  and  a  coroner's  inquest  was 
held,  with  the  result  of  showing  that  he 
had  died  after  being  brutally  beaten  and 
kicked.  Several  of  his  ribs  were  broken. 
The  attendants  promptly  placed  the 
blame  upon  other  inmates  of  violent  ten 
dencies,  and  from  the  nature  of  things  it 
was  impossible  to  get  satisfactory  evi 
dence  on  the  subject  ;  but  nobody  could 
give  a  sufficient  reason  why,  if  the 
poor  creature  had  come  to  his  death  from 
causes  which  the  asylum  management 
could  not  have  controlled,  the  facts  had 
not  been  frankly  made  known  in  the  first 
place  and  taken  out  of  their  atmosphere 
of  scandalous  mystery.  How  little  faith 
was  placed  in  explanations  which  failed 
to  explain,  was  shown  by  the  prompt  re 
vival  of  the  stories  of  cruelty  and  broken 
bones  after  the  death  of  another  inmate, 
Michael  Knecht,  who  went  into  the  record 
as  a  victim  of  pneumonia,  and  whose 
body  was  buried  in  the  asylum  grounds. 
What  seemed  to  outsiders  a  pretty  sure 
sign  of  crooked  work  in  this  case,  was  the 
summary  discharge  of  Knecht's  attendant 
by  the  superintendent.  But  inquiry  into 
this  scandal  was  put  off  by  the  superin 
tendent's  falling  seriously  ill  and  being 
unable  to  testify. 

The  purchase  of  supplies  for  the  State 
Hospital  for  the  Insane  at  Toledo  from 
"friendlv"  dea'ers.the  extraordinary  post 
age  account  of  the  Labor  Statistician, 
charges  of  grievous  cruelty  at  the  Boys' 
Industrial  School  at  Lancaster,  and  the 
freedom  with  which  the  inmates  of  the 
State  Hospital  for  the  Insane  at  Colum 
bus  were  permitted  to  make  exhibitions 
of  themselves  to  the  annoyance  of  the 
sane  people  living  in  the  neighborhood, 
were  only  a  few  of  the  matters  aired  by 
investigating  committees  and  the  press  ; 
and  all  tended  to  discredit  the  state  ad 
ministration,  so  that  good  citizens  with 
out  regard  to  party  cried  out  in  despair  : 
"  If  Gov.  McKinley  would  only  give  up 
campaigning  for  the  presidency  long 
enough  to  attend  to  the  needs  of  Ohio  !" 

The  Penitentiary  at  Columbus  was  one 
of  the  institutions  which  furnished  the 
largest  crop  of  scandals.  Escapes  of  con- 


30 


victs  became  suspiciously  frequent  ;  and 
a  murderer  named  Elliott  was  blinded  by 
vitriol  thrown  in  his  face  by  another 
prisoner  whose  plot  to  escape  he  had 
helped  to  frustrate  —  though  how  the 
vitriol  had  been  smuggled  into  the  con 
vict's  possession  nobody  seemed  able  to 
find  out.  The  first  penitentiary  chaplain 
under  McKinley's  governorship  retired 
from  service  after  being  charged  with 
immoralities  not  necessary  to  reheaise 
here.  The  second  went  out  also  under  a 
cloud,  the  result  of  certain  financial  trans 
actions  with  convicts.  He  took  charge 
of  convicts'  money  for  them  ;  he  also  had 
to  sign  recommendations  for  paroling 
convicts  for  good  behavior.  Accusations 
began  to  fly  about  that  he  did  not  always 
return  to  the  convicts  all  the  money  he 
obtained  from  or  for  them.  An  investi 
gation  was  made,  and,  though  he  was  able 
to  explain  a  good  many  of  his  operations, 
he  nevertheless  admitted  to  the  board  of 
inquiry  that  he  had  committed  a  grave 
indiscretion  in  borrowing  money  from 
prisoners  upon  whose  applications  for  pa 
role  he  would  have  to  pass  ;  and  his  resig 
nation  was  tendered  and  accepted  with 
out  more  ado. 

Owing  to  these  two  successive  scandals 
in  so  rapid  succession,  greater  pains  was 
apparently  taken  with  the  choice  of  a 
third  chaplain,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Winget,  for 
he  still  holds  the  place.  But  it  must  have 
been  a  great  discomfort  to  him,  if  at  all 
sensitive  to  the  association  in  which  his 
name  appears  in  print,  to  be  drawn  into 
such  a  spectacle  as  was  presented  one 
Sunday,  and  which  is  cited  here  not  be 
cause  it  is  unique,  or  highly  important 
in  itself,  but  as  illustrative  of  the  sort  of 
discipline  maintained  in  the  state  institu 
tions  under  the  governorship  of  a  weak- 
kneed,  vacillating  politician. 

A  deputy  warden  named  Playford  was 
going  to  leave  the  service  on  Monday,  his 
successor  having  been  appointed  and 
broken  in.  There  having  been  some 
rivalry  between  Playford  and  the  warden 
as  to  who  was  the  more  popular  with  the 
convicts  (!),  the  retiring  deputy  had  ar 
ranged  with  the  chaplain  to  allow  him  to 
make  a  farewell  speech  in  connection 
with  the  weekly  religious  exercises.  The 
warden,  however,  had  got  wind  of  this 
plan,  and  was  informed  also  that  a  large 
bouquet  had  been  smuggled  into  the 
prison,  which,  at  the  close  of  Playford's 
speech,  was  to  be  presented  to  him  by  a 
leading  convict,  with  appropriate  re 
marks,  as  a  testimonial  of  the  affection 
with  which  "  the  boys "  would  ever 
cherish  his  memory.  The  next  day,  of 
course,  the  newspapers  would  print  an 
account  of  the  whole  affair,  and  the  re 
tiring  deputy  would  be  one  point  ahead 
of  the  warden  in  his  reputation  for  popu 
larity  in  their  prison  world.  The  warden 


was  resolved  to  break  up  the  show  and 
spoil  its  theatrical  effect.  As  will  be  seen, 
he  succeeded  simply  in  turning  a  roaring 
farce  into  a  somewhat  gory  melodrama. 

The  chaplain  finished  his  discourse  and 
signalled  to  Playford,  who  stepped  for 
ward  with  a  bow  and  began  his  prepared 
address  to  the  convicts,  in  the  presence 
of  Warden  James,  an  assistant  deputy 
warden  named  Stackhouse,  the  warden's 
son,  Curry,  the  other  penitentiary  em 
ployees,  and  a  large  number  of  philan 
thropic  ladies  and  gentlemen  who  were 
in  the  habit  of  visiting  the  penitentiary 
chapel  on  Sunday.  But  instead  of  at 
tempting  to  describe  the  scene  which  fol 
lowed  in  the  language  of  an  ordinary 
chronicle,  let  us  get  its  picturesque  flavor 
— the  "local  color,"  as  it  were — from  the 
lips  of  Mr.  Playford  himself,  as  he  made 
his  statement  to  the  police  : 

"After  singing  and  prayer,"  said  he, 
"  the  chaplain  beckoned  to  me  to  get  up. 
I  got  up  and  said:  '  Boys,  don't  you  wish 
you  were  me?'  I  was  going  to  say,  'as 
I  retire  to-morrow  night,'  but  before  I 
could  utter  these  words  the  warden 
jumped  up  and  grabbed  me  by  the  left 
arm  and  said:  'Sit  down!'  I  replied, 
'  Warden,  I  have  the  permission  of  the 
chaplain  to  make  a  few  remarks  for  the 
benefit  of  the  service.'  Again  he  said, 
'Sit  down!'  and  beckoned  to  Stackhouse. 

"Stackhouse  jumped  to  his  feet  and 
grabbed  me  by  the  left  arm,  with  his 
club  raised,  and  jerked  me  round  in 
presence  of  the  visitors,  hurting  me  by 
wrenching  my  side.  He  dragged  me 
over  the  feet  of  several  lady  visitors, 
when  I  said:  'Stackhouse,  let  go  of  me! 
You  are  hurting  me.'  He  raised  his 
cane  in  the  air,  and  being  so  much  larger 
than  I,  weighing  about  250  pounds  and 
being  over  six  feet  tall  and  powerfully 
built,  I  feared  he  would  hit  me  with  his 
cane.  I  then  let  go  my  right,  and  caught 
him  below  the  right  eye  in  the  angle  of 
the  nose,  knocking  him  over  against  the 
annex  prisoners,  who  sat  on  the  plat 
form.  He  recovered  himself  and  raised 
his  club  to  hit  me,  when  I  clinched  him 
to  save  myself,  and  we  fell  down  three 
steps  of  the  platform  to  the  floor.  He 
fell  partly  on  me.  I  grabbed  him  and 
twisted  him  till  his  back  was  towards  me. 

"  By  that  time  the  new  deputy,  five 
guards,  and  the  warden's  son,  Curry, 
rushed  around  us.  Curry  shouted  to 
Stackhouse,  4  Give  it  to  him! '  I  jumped 
to  my  feet  and  exclaimed:  '  If  any  of  you 
come  at  me,  I'll  do  you  as  I  did  Stack- 
house.'  I  would  not  hit  Curry,  as  he  is 
not  worth  hitting." 

All  this  in  a  chapel  devoted  to  divine 
worship,  on  the  day  consecrated  to  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  and  in  the  presence  of 
some  hundreds  of  convicts,  kept  under 
lock  and  key  and  branded  for  life  because 


31 


they  have   raised   violent  hands  against 
their  neighbors! 

Warden  James's  version  of  the  affair, 
and  that  given  by  other  participants  and 
witnesses,  did  not  differ  materially  from 
Playford's,  though  lacking  some  of  the 
rare  moral  aroma  which  pervaded  his. 
The  press,  irrespective  of  party,  de 
nounced  the  whole  business  as  a  public 
shame  and  disgrace.  And  yet  it  was 
only  typical  of  the  management  of  the 
penal  institutions  of  Ohio  during  Mc- 
Kinley's  administration  as  Governor.  Is 
it  wonderful  that  their  condition  became 
so  intolerable  at  last  that,  even  in  this 
politics-ridden  state,  a  project  was  soberly 
broached  and  discussed  of  putting  the 
penitentiary  system  under  a  non-partisan 
board  of  managers,  in  the  hope  of  fumi 
gating  it? 


IX. 

Cruelty  and  Incapacity  at  the  Deaf-mute 

Asylum. 
COLUMBUS,  O.,  April  20. 

IN  the  last  letter  some  typical  instances 
were  cited  to  show  the  demoralization 
into  which  the  penal  and  charitable  insti 
tutions  of  Ohio  lapsed  during  the  rule  of 
Major  McKinley  as  Governor,  thanks  to 
his  poor  appointments  in  reorganizing 
the  personnel  of  the  state  government. 
It  is  not  given  to  any  man  to  do  always 
the  right  thing;  but  the  only  man  fit  to 
be  trusted  with  power  is  he  who,  having 
made  one  serious  blunder,  does  not  invite 
its  repetition  by  following  the  same 
course  a  second  time.  Major  McKinley, 
unhappily,  is  one  of  those  persons  on 
whom  the  lessons  of  experience  are 
thrown  away.  Take  for  an  example  the 
case  of  the  superintendents  of  the  State 
Institution  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb  in 
Columbus. 

The  law  of  Ohio — section  647  of  the 
Revised  Statutes — requires  that  these 
superintendents  "shall  be  persons  of 
acknowledged  skill,  ability,  and  experi 
ence  in  their  profession,  and  of  good 
moral  character."  A  carefully  prepared 
opinion  of  the  Attorney  General  construes 
this  to  mean  that,  besides  his  other 
accomplishments,  a  superintendent  shall 
be  able  to  understand  and  use  the  sign 
language  of  the  deaf  mutes.  In  spite  of 
the  law,  reinforced  by  the  plainest  dictates 
of  common  sense,  the  first  superintendent 
appointed  after  Gov.  McKinley  had  set 
his  reorganization  programme  in  motion 
was  one  S.  R.  Clark.  He  had  not  been  long 
in  command  before  reports  began  to  cir 
culate  that  the  children  at  the  institution 
were  ill  treated.  The  accusations  pres 
ently  became  so  definite  that  they  could 
no  longer  be^  ignored,  and  an  official 


investigation  was  ordered.  In  the  early 
part  of  1894  the  investigating  committee 
made  its  report.  Although  his  relations 
with  his  immediate  superiors,  as  will  be 
seen  later,  were  such  as  to  cause  the 
most  charitable  possible  view  to  be  taken 
of  the  superintendent's  conduct,  the 
committee  was  compelled  to  make  several 
painful  admissions.  Among  other  things, 
.it  found  that  he  was  a  cruel  martinet  in 
dealing  with  trifling  acts  of  stupidity  on 
the  part  of  the  pupils.  On  one  occasion 
three  of  the  girls,  being  a  little  late  for  a 
meal,  thought  to  take  a  short  cut  to  their 
seats  by  entering  the  dining-room  through 
the  main  door  instead  of  the  door  which 
the  rules  required  the  children  to  use. 
Clark  rushed  at  them,  seized  one  of  the 
party  by  her  arm  or  shoulder,  and  turned 
her  about  so  suddenly  that  her  head 
struck  the  door-casing  and  her  face  was 
badly  bruised. 

For  such  petty  infractions  of  the  rules 
as  leaving  table  without  permission, 
entering  library  without  permission,  or 
congregating  in  a  hall,  Clark  applied  or 
threatened  violent  punishment,  which  so 
terrorized  the  helpless  children  that  one, 
in  trying  to  flee  at  his  approach,  took  a 
bad  fall  and  was  injured. 

The  tables  were  at  times  insufficiently 
supplied  with  meats,  or  too  liberally  sup 
plied  with  bad  butter;  competent  and 
experienced  teachers  and  employees  were 
dismissed  without  cause;  and  a  law 
requiring  that  the  girls  should  be  taught 
how  to  make  wearing  apparel  was  flatly 
violated.  These  examples  show  the  wide 
range  of  the  offences  reported  by  the 
committee  as  proved.  The  committee 
took  pains  to  point  out  that,  if  the  super 
intendent  had  had  the  acquaintance  with 
the  deaf-mute  sign  language  which  the 
law  called  for,  he  might  have  avoided 
much  friction  in  his  relations  with  the 
pupils,  as  they  could  have  understood  his 
orders  and  he  could  have  understood 
their  excuses.  But  he  was  found  guilty 
finally  of  an  offence  which  mere  ignor 
ance  could  not  condone.  The  yearly 
allowance  of  public  money  for  running 
the  institution  was  based  upon  the  super 
intendent's  report  of  the  general  average 
of  attendance,  and  the  committee  found 
that  Clark  had  put  in  a  voucher  for  435, 
whereas  the  actual  figures  were  only  375. 
So  Clark  had  to  go.  But  so  reluctant 
were  the  board  of  trustees  to  part  with 
him  that,  in  accepting  his  resignation, 
they  took  pains  to  say  that  they  did  so 
"not  because  of  any  lack  of  confidence  in 
his  work  as  superintendent,  *  *  * 
but  because' circumstances  beyond  our 
control  left  us  no  other  course  to  pursue." 
And  they  emphasized  this  friendly  senti 
ment  by  making  him  a  handsome  pres 
ent  as  a  souvenir  of  his  brief  administra 
tion. 


32 


For  a  month  after  Clark's  retirement, 
the  politicians  swarmed  about  the  Gov 
ernor's  room,  trying  to  capture  the  vacant 
superintendentship  for  one  or  another 
favorite.  Among  other  influences  brought 
to  bear,  was  that  of  the  Republican  Glee 
Club,  which  had  done  yeoman  work  in 
the  last  preceding  McKinley  campaign. 

The  club  pressed  as  a  candidate  one  of 
its  own  members  named  Ellis,  who  had 
once  served  a  term  as  steward  of  the  in 
stitution.  The  confidence  of  the  club 
that  it  had  sung  itself  into  a  position  of 
authority  with  the  Governor,  where  it 
could  name  the  head  of  a  great  state 
charity,  is,  perhaps,  a  sufficient  commen 
tary  on  the  way  Major  McKinley's  fellow- 
partisans  looked  upon  his  use  of  patron 
age  as  Governor.  Indeed,  back  of  every 
thing  else  to  be  considered  in  this 
connection  lies  the  fact  that  the  law  vests 
the  selection  of  the  superintendent  in  the 
board  of  trustees  ;  yet  the  board's  own 
candidate,  a  professor  in  the  institution 
named  Odebrecht,  stood  no  better  chance 
for  the  place  than  any  political  "boomer." 
It  was  this  way  with  all  appointments 
under  the  McKinley  regime,  down 
almost,  if  not  quite,  to  the  charwomen 
who  scrubbed  the  floors  of  the  public 
buildings  :  the  Governor's  hand  was  in 
everything,  no  matter  where  the  law 
placed  the  right  of  selection,  and  to  the 
Governor  all  petitions  and  appeals  for 
patronage  were  addressed. 

To  return  to  the  Glee  Club.  When  its 
committee  visited  the  Governor  to  urge 
the  appointment  of  Ellis,  they  found  that 
they  were  too  late.  The  Governor  told 
them  that  he  was  sorry  to  seem  unac 
commodating, but  he  had  already  given  his 
word  in  favor  of  the  Rev.  W.  S.  Eagleson, 
an  applicant  for  the  recent  vacancy  in 
the  penitentiary  chaplainship.  It  having 
been  necessary  to  refuse  the  reverend 
gentleman's  request  in  that  quarter,  it 
was  of  course  desired  to  give  him  "  some 
thing  equally  as  good,"  and  the  place  of 
superintendent  of  the  Institution  for  the 
Deaf  and  Dumb  seemed  to  fill  the  bill 
pretty  well  ! 

A  little  later  came  the  trustees.  They 
pointed  out  to  the  Governor  that  Prof. 
Odebrecht  met  all  the  legal  requirements 
fora  superintendent,  and  had  in  addition 
a  familiarity  with  this  particular  institu 
tion  and  its  inmates  which  would  obviate 
the  need  of  such  a  breaking-in  as  must 
be  given  to  a  new  man.  The  Governor 
answered  that,  while  all  they  said  might 
be  true,  he  considered  Mr.  Eagleson  a 
very  superior  person,  who  would  soon 
adapt  himself  to  the  duties  of  superin 
tendent.  The  trustees  replied  that  Mr. 
Eagleson  might  be  morally  and  intellectu 
ally  all  he  was  represented  to  be,  but 
that  he  did  not  know  the  deaf-mute 
language,  which  was  by  law  a  sine  qua 


non,  and  had  had  no  special  training 
in  this  field  of  educational  work.  They 
recalled  to  the  Governor's  mind  the  very 
bad  blunder  that  had  been  made  in 
appointing  Mr.  Clark,  who  gave  as  good 
promise  as  Mr.  Eagleson,  and,  like  him, 
was  ignorant  of  the  sign  language,  to  his 
own  cost  and  that  of  the  institution  ; 
they  thought  it  would  make  abad  impres 
sion,  and  tend  to  destroy  public  confidence 
in  the  management  of  the  institution,  to 
do  again  what  had  been  done  with  so 
sorry  a  result  in  the  Clark  case. 

Within  twenty-four  hours  the  scramble 
for  the  place  was  ended  by  the  announce 
ment  that  Mr.  Eagleson  was  appointed. 
The  way  this  consummation  came  about 
was  characteristic.  The  trustees  had 
met  and  heard  the  report  of  their  com 
mittee,  when  a  messenger  appeared  at 
the  board-room  with  a  request  from  the 
Governor  that  two  of  the  trustees — two 
who  were  regarded  as  uncertain,  and  who 
held  the  balance  of  power — would  call 
upon  him  at  once  at  his  hotel.  They  did 
so,  and  on  their  return  there  was  nothing 
left  for  the  board  to  do  but  to  ratify  the 
Governor's  mandate  and  select  Mr. 
Eagleson  by  formal  vote.  The  legal 
requirement  as  to  his  acquaintance  with 
the  sign  language  was  evaded  by  giving 
him  until  the  following  August — three 
months — to  "study  up"  the  subject  under 
a  private  tutor  ! 

This  wretched  subterfuge  cost  the 
reverend  gentleman  a  vast  amount  of 
hard  work  for  a  very  small  return;  for, 
one  year  after  he  had  thus  fitted  himself 
for  his  post,  he  was  obliged  to  quit  it, 
owing  to  a  quarrel  in  which  heMiad^be- 
come  involved  with  the  matron. 


X. 

The  Campaign  of  Noise — A    Specimen 

Touter. 
CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  22. 

THE  McKinley  campaign,  as  has  been 
said,  is  strictly  a  "  brass-band"  affair. 
The  idea  of  making  a  great  noise,  and 
thus  frightening  the  timid  delegates  and 
driving  rival  candidates  from  the  field 
unless  they  have  uncommonly  good 
nerves,  was  the  product  of  "  Mark " 
Hanna's  ingenuity.  Hanna  knows  the 
sort  of  human  material  with  which  he 
has  to  deal.  That  his  plan  is  effective, 
at  least  in  spots,  is  shown  by  the  sort  of 
letters  which  are  coming  to  leading  Re 
publicans  in  Ohio  from  lesser  lights  of 
the  party  in  other  states.  A  typical  case 
is  that  of  a  Kentuckian  who  wrote  some 
time  ago  to  a  prominent  business  man  in 
this  state.  "  I  want  to  be  internal  rev 
enue  collector  for  my  district,"  said  he, 
"and  I  am  in  need  of  advice.  Gov. 


33 


Bradley  is  an  old  and  valued  friend  of 
mine,  and  if  I  could  do  what  I  wanted  I 
would  support  him  for  President.  But 
everything  I  hear  is  'McKinley.'  J.  S. 
was  through  here  lately,  fresh  from 
Ohio,  and  he  says  that  every  delegate 
who  doesn't  come  out  for  McKinley  now 
is  going  to  be  blacklisted.  I  am  a  dele 
gate,  and  I  don't  know  what  to  do." 

Luckily,  he  was  dealing  with  an  honest 
man,  who  answered:  "Stick  to  Bradley. 
Then  you  will  be  sure  of  his  good-will 
if  he  has  the  distribution  of  the  patronage 
in  your  state.  If  you  come  out  for  Mc 
Kinley  now,  you  will  be  only  one  of  a 
crowd,  and  neither  candidate  will  remem 
ber  you  when  the  time  comes." 

Every  Ohioan  to  whom  this  was  re 
peated  bore  witness  that  the  advice  was 
good,  not  only  because  founded  on  a 
wholesome  principle  of  loyalty,  but  be 
cause  Major  McKinley's  memory— after 
election  —  is  notoriously  treacherous. 
There  are  not  wanting  those  good  Re 
publicans  who  accuse  him  of  forgetful- 
ness  at  an  earlier  stage,  as,  for  instance, 
at  the  Minneapolis  convention  of  1892, 
when  a  candid  word  from  him  at  a  criti 
cal  juncture  would  have  released  the 
Ohio  delegation  from  their  hypocritical 
bondage  to  himself  and  enabled  the  Har 
rison  men  to  go  where  they  belonged. 
As  it  was,  he  made  them  play  the  inane 
part  of  the  chorus  in  the  old  Greek 
drama — they  insisting  that  he  should 
accept  the  honor  of  the  nomination, 
while  he  stood  up  behind  the  chairman's 
desk,  and  virtuously  protested  in  a  gentle 
voice  that  his  own  choice  was  Harrison. 
For  that  piece  of  spectacular  fol-de-rol, 
following  immediately  after  a  series  of 
events  which  convinced  everyone  of  his 
willingness  to  have  the  nomination  forced 
upon  him,  McKinley  has  never  been 
forgiven  by  the  friends  of  General  Harri 
son,  and  with  reason.  The  whole  per 
formance  was  as  empty  as  the  excuses 
with  which  he  dodged  the  challenge  of 
Col.  McClure  of  Pennsylvania,  a  month 
later,  to  take  part  in  a  joint  debate  on  the 
tariff.  McKinley's  successes  in  the  polit 
ical  field  have  never  been  won  by  hard 
logic,  but  by  the  stampede  process,  just 
as  his  votes  while  the  leader  of  the 
House  in  the  Fifty-first  Congress  were 
won  by  the  application  ot  the  "  previous 
question"  gag  rule  and  the  sharp  cracks 
of  the  party  whip.  The  campaign-chest 
is  always  well  in  evidence  also,  and  the 
rich  people  who  have  had  something  to 
gain  by  his  election  have  never  failed  to 
keep  it  full.  Eighty-five  thousand  dollars 
is  the  figure  set  here  upon  the  campaign 
fund  raised  for  his  first  election  to  the 
governorship,  contributed  by  Eastern 
manufacturers  and  other  "business" 
constituents  who  already  had  him  in 
training  for  the  presidency. 


A  sensation  has  been  caused  within  the 
last  few  days  by  the  publication,  in  a 
Columbus  paper  which  has  repeatedly 
given  McKinley  the  most  loyal  support, 
of  the  announcement  that  the  men  who 
held  minor  offices  in  this  state  under  his 
governorship  were  to  be  assessed  $25 
each  for  the  expenses  of  this  year's  can 
vass.  The  article  proceeds: 

"  Some  idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  call 
may  be  obtained  when  it  is  considered 
that  altogether  there  are  about  eight 
hundred  officials,  clerks,  and  "  sich  "  who 
owe  their  employment  to  the  Governor 
more  or  less  directly.  ...  As  a 
matter  of  course  these  persons  are  not 
compelled  to  pay  the  money.  They  are 
simply  asked  to  do  so  to  assist  the  cause, 
but,  being  asked,  the  great  majority  of 
them  will  feel  in  duty  bound  to  respond. 
If  a  number  respond,  proportionate  to 
the  number  who  respond  in  the  state 
campaigns,  this  horizontal  assessment 
will  produce  about  $20.000. 

The  need  of  money  to  run  this  cam 
paign  must  be  very  pressing  indeed,  if 
the  clerks  must  be  taxed  at  so  early  a 
stage,  when  the  only  expense  that  can  be 
incurred  is  that  of  "  working  up"  delega 
tions  to  St.  Louis.  It  seems  as  if  the 
candidate  ought  to  look  for  this  prelimin 
ary  fund  to  some  of  the  multitude  of 
wealthy  friends  whose  loyalty  is  exploited 
so  persistently  in  the  McKinley  press. 
There  is  "  Mark"  Hanna  himself,  whose 
street-railroad  interests  owe  so  much  to 
Major  McKinley's  forbearance,  if  not  to 
his  friendly  cooperation,  as  Governor. 
And  there  is  "Ves"  Everett,  whom  Hanna 
has  put  upon  the  Ohio  delegation  as  his 
confidential  friend.  The  New  York 
Tribtme  referred  to  Everett  the  other  day 
as  "  a  prominent  banker  of  Cleveland." 
The  writer  of  the  Tribune  article  would 
have  been  more  strictly  correct  if  he  had 
referred  to  this  gentleman  as  a  retired 
capitalist,  for  the  Cleveland  directories 
give  his  name  and  his  residence  in  the 
most  gorgeous  part  of  Euclid  Avenue, 
without  attaching  any  occupation  thereto. 

It  is  true  that  Everett  was  a  banker 
once.  That  was  back  in  the  seventies. 
The  firm  was  Everett,  Weddell  &  Co. 
Everett  was  credited  with  being  the 
moving  spirit  of  the  concern,  and  Weddell 
the  ornamental  partner,  with  a  snug 
fortune  but  little  practical  knowledge  of 
the  business.  One  day  there  came  an 
awful  crash.  The  creditors  seized  on 
everything  in  sight.  So  much  of  Wed- 
dell's  property  as  would  realize  anything 
went  to  pay  the  debts  of  the  firm,  together 
with  money  put  up  by  some  friend  of 
Everett's,  generally  understood  to  be  a 
rich  relative  by  marriage.  Weddell  re 
tired  from  public  view,  utterly  ruined  in 
fortune;  what  became  of  the  "  Co."  does 
not  appear  ;  but  Everett,  always  buoyant 


34 


and  debonair,  soon  rose  to  the  crest  of 
the  wave  again.  Hanna  has  apparently 
never  lost  faith  in  him,  and  has  put  him 
into  this  and  that  place,  sometimes  in  the 
banking  line  and  sometimes  elsewhere. 
Just  now  he  has  him  in  street  railroads 
and  politics,  while  Everett  is  interested 
on  his  own  account  as  a  ''promoter"  of 
various  gigantic  enterprises  scattered 
around  the  country. 

Everett  is  "  smart,"  in  the  Western 
sense.  Even  the  neighbors  who  lower 
their  voices  when  they  rehearse  his  varie 
gated  experiences  as  a  financier  are  ready 
to  admit  that.  He  has  a  most  attractive 
way,  too,  of  forgiving — or  appearing  to 
forgive — those  quondam  friends  who 
have  played  football  publicly  with  his 
fair  name.  This  makes  people  speak  of 
him  as  "  popular"  as  well  as  smart. 

Indeed,  his  popularity  has  always  been 
one  of  his  strong  points.  Once,  while  he 
was  poor  Weddell's  senior  partner,  he 
was  so  popular  that,  though  a  Republican, 
he  was  elected  City  Treasurer  on  both 
party  tickets  at  once.  There  are  malicious 
politicians  who  account  for  this  pheno 
menon  by  saying  that  the  Democrats 
nominated  him  out  of  esteem  for  his  mag 
nanimity  as  shown  in  contributing  more 
money  to  their  campaign  fund  than  to 
that  of  the  Republicans.  However  that 
may  be,  he  was  elected  term  after  term, 
till  it  began  to  be  wondered  whether  no 
body  else  in  Cleveland  was  fitfor  the  place. 

One  secret  of  his  long  continuance  in 
office  was,  without  doubt,  his  clever  hand 
ling  of  the  city  securities.  When  the  city 
issued  a  new  batch  of  bonds,  they  would 
be  turned  over  to  Everett  to  dispose  of, 
and,  when  any  of  the  money  was  needed, 
Everett  furnished  it.  That  was  highly 
satisfactory  to  the  public,  for  it  saved  them 
a  lot  of  trouble  in  watching  where  the 
bonds  went  to,  or  where  the  money  came 
from,  or  on  what  terms  the  city  dealt  with 
its' creditors.  As  long  as  the  money  was 
always  on  tap  when  needed, what  folly  to 
bother  the  taxpayers'  heads  wilh  details  ! 

But  one  day  a  local  banker — the  old 
inhabitants  say  it  was  John  F.  Whitelaw, 
now  presidentof  the  National  City  Bank — 
conceived  the  idea  of  throwing  a  little  light 
on  these  operations.  So  he  prepared  an 
ordinance,  which  the  Common  Council 
enacted,  requiring  that  the  city's  securi 
ties  should  thereafter  be  put  up  for 
competitive  bids  and  sold  at  the  highest 
figure  offered.  Everett  stoutly  resisted 
the  new  order  of  things,  but  he  was 
compelled  to  surrender,  and  the  wisdom 
of  the  competitive  plan  was  shown  by  the 
fact  that  about  $16,000  was  saved  to  the 
city  on  a  single  issue  of  a  quarter-million 
dollars'  worth  of  bonds.  Not  long  there 
after  the  treasurership  seemed  to  lose  its 
attraction  for  Everett,  and  he  passed  into 
private  life. 


It  is  not  the  writer's  purpose  to  single 
out  this  one  financier  for  especial  distinc 
tion.  His  career  is  reviewed  here  simply 
because  he  is  "  Mark1'  Hanna's  right- 
hand  man,  and  a  McKinley  oracle  whom 
the  Tribune  seems  to  love  to  quote.  He 
is  doubtless  no  worse  and  no  belter  than 
other  people  Hanna  makes  useful  for 
blowing  the  McKinley  campaign  trum 
pets,  and  whom  he  will  "take  care  of" 
after  he  has  elected  his  little  President. 

Where  would  "  Ves"  fit  best  in  the  next 
administration?  Asa  t%  prominent  ban 
ker  of  Cleveland,"  how  would  he  do,  say, 
for  Comptroller  of  the  Currency  when 
James  H.  Eckels  steps  out? 


XI. 

The  Indictment   Summarized — A   Pitiful 

Prospect. 

CLEVELAND,  O.,  April  23. 
THE  sole  aim  of  this  series  of  letters 
has  been  to  present  a  faithful  portrait  of 
Major  McKinley  as  his  lifelong  neighbors 
in  Ohio  see  him.  That  it  is  only  an  out 
line  sketch  is  partly  the  fault  of  its  sub 
ject,  who  is  only  an  outline  statesman, 
and  partly  the  result  of  there  being  so 
great  a  mass  of  material  of  the  same  sort 
to  draw  upon,  that  it  is  practicable  to 
cite  only  typical  cases.  It  does  not 
straighten  the  crooked  lines  in  this  picture, 
or  lighten  its  heavy  strokes,  to  say  that 
it  does  not  leave  Major  McKinley  under 
indictment  for  positive  and  aggressive 
wrong-doing.  To  the  extent  that  it  does 
not  attempt  to  make  him  out  a  criminal 
and  an  outlaw,  this  is  true.  The  com 
plaint  against  him,  admitted  freely  by 
Ohioans  who  are  most  friendly  to  him 
personally,  is  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  business,  a 
shifty  politician,  and  a  weak  and  nerve 
less  executive.  The  only  strong  trait  for 
which  his  neighbors  give  him  credit  is  an 
inordinate  ambition  to  become  President 
of  the  United  States.  That  one  idea 
appears  to  have  dominated  his  whole  life 
ever  since  "Mark''  Hanna  began  to  make 
use  of  him  as  a  candidate;  and  it  has 
warped  and  unfitted  him  for  doing  his 
duty  to  himself  or  to  the  trusts  his  state 
has  committed  to  his  keeping. 

In  our  rapid  panorama  of  his  career 
for  four  years,  we  have  seen  him  fright 
ened  into  a  pitiful  paralysis  of  tongue  and 
pen  when  urged  to  make  plain  his  posi 
tion  on  the  silver  question  at  a  critical 
time.  We  have  seen  him  leaning,  for 
his  main  support  as  a  presidential  candi 
date,  upon  a  false  and  hollow  pretense  of 
having  his  own  state  behind  him.  We 
have  seen  him  go  down  under  a  load  of 
another  man's  debts  in  which  he  would 
not  have  become  entangled  but  for  his 


35 


lack  of  ordinary  business  sense.  We 
have  seen  him  trading  upon  a  credit 
which  proved  itself  chiefly  wind,  since  his 
own  means  would  not  meet  a  respectable 
fraction  of  the  obligations  with  which  he 
had  loaded  himself,  and  he  had  no  settled 
income.  We  have  seen  that,  instead  of 
quitting  politics  and  going  to  work — the 
only  course  which  his  frank  friend  Mr. 
Kohlsaat  thought  practicable  for  a  bank 
rupt  who  proposed  to  pay  his  debts  him 
self — he  allowed  a  group  of  his  rich 
backers  to  "pass  the  hat"  and  pay  his 
debts  for  him.  We  have  seen  him  in  the 
Governor's  chair,  letting  the  state  of  Ohio 
run  a  half-million  dollars  into  debt  for 
mere  current  expenses,  while  he  devoted 
his  attention  to  his  presidential  prospects. 
We  have  seen  him  ignore  the  need  of 
replenishing  the  state  treasury,  when  his 
best  friends  wanted  his  aid  in  passing 
the  Whittlesey  tax  bill.  We  have^seen 
him  equally  oblivious  of  his  present'duty 
when  his  help  was  most  needed,  in  the 
case  of  the  Hocking  Canal  lease,  with  the 
consequence  that  the  state  lost  $25,000  at 
a  single  stroke,  and  the  chance  of  an 
improved  yearly  rental  at  a  later  date. 
We  have  seen  him  manifest  an  active 
interest  in  only  one  of  the  state's  financial 
operations,  which  resulted  in  leasing  to  a 
railroad  corporation  a  piece  of  public 
property  on  a  valuation  of  $157,000, 
though  it  was  valued  by  the  lawful 
authority  at  $357, ooo.  We  have  seen 
him  permitting  the  use  of  the  Governor's 
room  in  the  capitol  as  a  camping-ground 
for  his  friend  and  backer,  the  chief  street- 
railway  magnate  of  the  state,  when  a  bill 
was  pending  to  secure  street-railway 
franchises  for  ninety-nine  years,  and  a 
number  of  legislators  had  to  be  "con 
vinced"  before  the  vote.  We  have  seen 
demoralization  pervading  the  state  gov 
ernment  in  every  department  during  his 
exercise  of  the  appointing  power,  and 
the  atmosphere  of  the  prisons  and  asylums 
saturated  with  scandal. 

It  is  no  apology  for  such  a  record  to  say 
that  Gov.  McKinley  never  ran  his  own 
hand  into  the  state  treasury  to  enrich 
himself;  it  is  the  business  of  a  Governor 
to  keep  the  hands  of  other  men  out,  also. 
It  is  no  excuse  for  McKinley's  incapacity 
that  the  Governor  of  Ohio  has  no  veto 
power  under  the  constitution;  he  has  at 
hand  other  means  for  advancing  good 
and  blocking  bad  legislation,  as  the 
records  of  several  of  McKinley's  prede 
cessors  in  office  show.  It  is  not  enough 
to  plead,  as  a  reason  for  promoting  a 
Governor  to  the  presidency,  that  the 
scandals  which  made  his  term  as  Governor 
memorable  were  not  so  huge  as  some 
which  have  blackened  the  pages  of  other 
histories;  petty  sins  are  too  often  asso 
ciated  with  petty  virtues,  and  a  long  list 
of  them  stamps  their  perpetrator  as  a 


petty  man  and  a  petty  public  officer,  far 
below  the  standard  of  character  and 
ability  which  our  republic  has  set  for  its 
chief  executive. 

The  half-measure  quality  which  per 
vades  all  that  Major  McKinley  does  and 
is,  can  certainly  not  be  considered  a  rec 
ommendation  for  the  presidency.  The 
same  craving  which  has  paralyzed  his 
best  energies  while  a  first  term  has  been 
in  sight  would  undoubtedly  dominate 
him  in  the  hope  of  a  second.  The  same 
lack  of  sturdy  independence  which  has 
always  made  him  a  toy  in  the  hands  of 
stronger  men  would  keep  him  under  their 
control  as  President,  especially  in  view  of 
the  additional  obligations  incurred  in  his 
campaign.  What  could  be  more  edifying 
than  to  see  the  daily  gazette  of  appoint 
ments  bristling  with  the  old,  familiar 
names:  "Mark"  Hanna  for  Premier, 
with  power  to  plunge  the  nation  into  war 
to-day  and  coo  the  sweet  notes  of  peace 
to-morrow,  according  to  whether  the 
markets  needed  a  bear  or  a  bull  impulse; 
"Ves"  Everett  to  manage  the  Treasury 
and  dispose  of  the  bonds;  Richards  for 
Attorney  General,  to  advise  the  govern 
ment  how  it  could  most  effectively  cut 
down  its  sources  of  revenue;  "Bill" 
Hahn  for  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  with 
the  largest  cabinet  patronage  to  handle; 
Sleeper  for  Interstate  Commerce  Commis 
sioner,  to  see  that  that  unbuilt  railroad  in 
Athens  County  gets  its  share  of  whatever 
is  "going  'round";  "Joe"  Smith  for 
Librarian  of  Congress,  with  leisure  to 
run  a  second-term  literary  bureau;  and 
Eagleson  for  Superintendent  of  the  Coast 
Survey,  with  three  months'  leeway  to 
"get  up"  the  necessary  mathematical 
knowledge. 

Although  this  list  of  possible  appointees 
must  be  only  imaginary  at  the  present 
stage,  the  experience  of  the  state  of  Ohio 
under  McKinley's  administration  sug 
gests  that  something  quite  as  grotesque 
might  be  in  store  for  the  whole  Union  if 
he  became  President.  The  pressure  for 
favors  would  begin  with  the  big  men  to 
whom  the  ex-Governor  is  over  his  ears  in 
debt,  and  end  with  the  little  fellows  who 
feel  in  need  of  a  "  vindication  " — and  a 
salary.  If  the  lessons  of  the  past  furnish 
any  basis  for  prophecy,  the  officer  who, 
stood  at  the  focus  of  this  pressure  would 
be  unable  to  resist  it,  and  the  air  of 
Washington  would  soon  become  as  thick 
with  "deals'"  and  "combines"  and 
"schemes"  as  the  air  of  Columbus  was 
from  January,  1892,  to  December,  1895. 
Knowing  what  they  do  of  their  candi 
date,  can  we  wonder  that  the  most  in 
telligent  Republicans  of  Ohio,  and  even 
leading  members  of  the  delegation  to  • 
St.  Louis,  still  refuse  to  believe  that  the 
national  convention  will  let  McKinley 
stampede  it? 


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